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. Carolyn Bolivar-Getson.]
In Attendance:
Ms. Kim Leadley
Select Committee Clerk
Ms. Sherri Mitchell
Select Committee Clerk
Witnesses
Mr. Frank Fawson
Ms. Evelyn Snyder
Mr. Dick Crawford
Mr. Keith Trimper
Mr. Daryl Gray
Mr. Paul Pross
Mr. Ken Edwards
[Page 1]
SELECT COMMITTEE ON
PARTICIPATION IN THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS
7:00 P.M.
CHAIRMAN
Mr. Michel Samson
MR. CHAIRMAN: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to tonight's public meeting, in Bridgewater, of the Select Committee on Participation in the Democratic Process.
The committee you have here before you is a committee that was struck as a result of a resolution which was unanimously passed in the House of Assembly. In light of the most recent Nova Scotia elections, we've noted, along with everyone else, a decline in voter turnout in each subsequent election. Following the 2006 election, we decided that it was imperative that MLAs try to find ways to attract more Nova Scotians and find out why they are not voting, so to help our democratic process.
The committee was struck with three representatives of each caucus in Halifax, that being three representatives from the New Democratic Party, three representatives from the Liberal Party, and three representatives from the Progressive Conservative Party.
The intention of these meetings is that once the committee was struck, we initially underwent some research and review of documentation, not only from Nova Scotia trends but also federal trends and trends around the world. We did decide that it was also imperative that we give Nova Scotians the opportunity to be able to share with us their thoughts and suggestions on this idea, which is why we've set up an Internet site, a Facebook site, and we do have an e-mail address, we have a mailing address, a phone number, a fax number, and we also decided that we should head out to communities around Nova Scotia to hear from Nova Scotians in their communities.
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Starting as of last week, on Monday we were in Sydney, Tuesday in Antigonish, Wednesday in Truro, and Thursday in Amherst. Yesterday we were in Yarmouth, tonight and today we've been in Bridgewater, and tomorrow we will be in Kentville, before returning to Halifax where we will wrap up our public meetings at that point.
One of the differences with this committee from previous committees is that not only are we having the public session at night, but we decided to go one step further in that we've held focus groups in the afternoons where we've been visiting communities, so this afternoon we had a focus group which brought students from the local community college and also brought students from various high schools in the area.
In other communities we've also had focus groups with representatives of community organizations which have come together to share some of their thoughts and suggestions with us.
I want to thank everyone for coming here this evening and, before we begin, if I could ask my colleagues to introduce themselves to you so you know exactly who you have sitting up here.
[The committee members introduced themselves.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: Also, to my left is Sherri Mitchell from our Committees Office, and we also have Kim Leadley here with us as well from the Committees Office, standing in the back of the room. To my left we have representatives from Hansard, which is the official written record of the House of Assembly, and we have representatives from Legislative TV who, while they are not here videotaping us, are doing the audio taping of this.
I should point out as well that this meeting is being recorded - anything that is said, comments that are made will be part of the official record of tonight's meeting and of the entire package of our public consultation. We do invite people to present, but we simply wanted to make note that it is being recorded and, as well, we do have some representatives from the local media, so your comments may be reflected in the media as well.
Before we start with the list of presenters, I should also point out that in every community where we've gone, we've relaxed the rules of procedure significantly in that even if you didn't get the chance to contact us that you wanted to make a presentation, after we've gone through our list of presenters if there's anyone who wishes to make some comments or some observations, we'd certainly welcome you to do that.
I'm going to start with the list of names that has been presented to us. I would like to first call upon Mr. Frank Fawson and, Mr. Fawson, if you can just speak directly into the
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microphone - you don't need to lean forward or anything, it's adjusted to pick up your voice, so sit comfortably and if you can just tell us your full name and your address, please.
MR. FRANK FAWSON: Frank Fawson, Dayspring - is that enough of an address?
MR. CHAIRMAN: That's enough of an address. And I should point out to you and to all other presenters that once you're done your presentation, committee members may have some questions for you as well. I'm hoping that won't be a problem for you, but I just wanted to advise you of that.
MR. FAWSON: No.
MR. CHAIRMAN: The floor is yours.
MR. FAWSON: Okay, great. Thank you. I would first like to thank you all for putting this meeting on. I think it's very valuable and I think we need it desperately, given some of the things you said about turnouts in our elections, and I welcome the opportunity to come here and speak.
Some of my comments are a little critical of political Parties - but don't take that personally. I'm speaking very generally. I'll start with some of your words, the preamble to the resolution, because I think that's constructive to what I want to talk about, and it says:
"Whereas the percentage of Nova Scotians voting in provincial elections has declined over a number of years; and
Whereas it is the desire of all Parties in the House of Assembly to increase public participation" - that's important - "in the democratic process; and
Whereas the Parties wish to enhance the effectiveness of our representative form of government;"
Those are the two key words for me, "participation" and "representative form of government" and why I want to talk about that is because there is quite a difference, in my opinion, between what is called representative democracy and participatory democracy.
I'll first start by talking about the evolution of democracy, because some people talk about democracy like it's a static thing and that we are there, we are at the end. But if you think back to 250 years ago, when representative democracy first came to Nova Scotia, it was probably a handful of landowning men who were picked by some Governor- in- Council, or whatever, to be the representative government of the day; then you can move that a little bit forward and it was probably males who owned land who would elect a representative
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government; you can go ahead a little further to the early 1900s and then women became eligible to vote and elect a representative government; and then you go a little further to the 1960s and Aboriginals got the right to vote as well.
The point I'm making is that our democracy is an evolution and it is on a continuum, and we have to look to where it's going or where we want it to go in the future if it's going to truly be something that people will accept and they'll go out and vote.
I think there are some failings of representative democracy and they very much contribute to low voter turnout. The fact that you get to participate once every four years or so, by putting a piece of paper in a ballot box, the candidates are selected by the Parties themselves, the Party members who, I believe in Canada, all political Party members form about less than 5 per cent of the population. They pick the candidates and then we get to go and mark our X or our check mark.
Party Leaders aren't elected at large - they're picked by the Parties and then we don't even get to vote on Party Leaders, most of us, unless they're in our particular riding; Party members 14 years or older get to pick those Leaders, too, whereas you must be 18 years and older to vote; there are no fixed election dates - well now federally we're supposed to have them, but it didn't seem to work out recently; and there's no limits on terms like there is for the U.S. President, which I think is a good thing.
When the representatives are elected, there's the real conflict that they either follow the Party line or they follow the wishes of those who elected them. This is a real contradiction for most voters, I think, or many voters - is this really democracy? Is this the way that democracy should work, that they should follow a Party line, rather than the people? Democracy is about serving the people, I think most people would agree.
The Parties also get huge amounts of public money to inform us about what their policies are and why we should vote for them and so forth. I'm not so sure that in most people's minds there's very much good evaluation done as to how that money is spent, whether that job is done well or not. So there's a lot of apathy out there because of these things and I think a lot of it we can point to the Party system and representative democracy.
As I said earlier, the evolution of democracy is on a continuum. I think we are headed towards and at some point - maybe not in my lifetime - I don't know, we'll come to participatory democracy.
[7:15 p.m.]
We live in an illusion in the West that Western democracies are the leading edge, and they're not. There are all kinds of examples in Latin America that are far beyond what we're doing here with true participatory democracy. Probably the leading edge in Canada now is
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what people refer to as proportional representation. To me, that'll reinforce representative democracy. I think it's probably a good thing. It's a small step forward, but it's no panacea. It'll still leave too much of the control of the electoral process in the hands of the political Parties. In most proportional representation models, the list of candidates who would be picked proportionally were provided by the Party - right? Again, it's not democracy from the people, where they're actively participating.
Probably the best Canadian example that I know of - and there are a few - of participatory democracy is the B.C. Constituent Assembly on Electoral Reform that I think took place about five years ago. Just very quickly, what that was was a group of British Columbia residents who were randomly picked to sit on a committee to come up with recommendations to the government for electoral reform, and then it was to be voted on - it was voted on later on - and this randomly picked group had to agree that they would commit a certain amount of hours and there would be education provided on all the different types of possibilities for electoral reform. I believe they might even have been paid for their time as well, I'm not sure. But that's probably the closest we got in Canada to participatory democracy, and I think a very similar model was used in Ontario for their electoral reform and one in P.E.I. - and I'm not sure about that, how that was structured.
I think the best hope for participatory democracy is actually at the municipal level. I think the federal level of government, to many people, is irrelevant today. That's the same in the U.S., I think, at the national level and probably many other countries, Mexico or wherever. So probably all North America, that level of government at the national federal level is becoming irrelevant.
The provincial, too, is very distant and maybe too large for people to connect to readily, but public participation can happen locally. It's very possible, but it would mean that both the federal and provincial levels of government have to allow greater decision making to take place at the local level and, as we all know, the municipal level of government actually doesn't have any power under the Constitution, it all flows from the province. So these are some of the things that maybe need to change if we're going to open up participation. Local control of resources at the very local level, decision making being made at the local level, I think is another important way that can happen.
Now, these thoughts that I'm having, just these last thoughts here about municipal government, these are not idle thoughts of mine. I have run in every municipal election but one in this province in the last 20 years and just recently I won, I finally won, and now I'm a municipal councillor. So now I to have to figure out ways that I'm going to open up avenues of participation. The real challenge is to make it happen. I believe that voter turnout will remain low in representative democracy until we start to move to a more participated democracy. I think that is the problem. It will remain low. People want more than just answering questions that are put forth by their representatives. They want to actually
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formulate the questions that should be asked, and then they'll ask , and then they'll answer them, and then they'll participate in them. That's about all I have to say.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Fawson, and congratulations. Obviously, persistence and perseverance has paid off for you.
MR. FAWSON: Somebody called me a masochist.
MR. CHAIRMAN: We would never say that around this table. Ms. MacDonald.
MS. MAUREEN MACDONALD: Thank you and congratulations as well. So I'm having a little difficulty with following the logic in terms of your argument, because I think - I mean I totally agree with many of the points that you make about the Party system, the features of the Party system, you know, the choosing of leaders by a very small group of people, et cetera, et cetera. However, you end up by saying that the municipal level of government is the level of government that engenders an ability to have less cynicism and greater participation.
Now, it's the only level of government right now that has no Party system. It's also the level of government that has the least voter engagement, historically, in Nova Scotia and it's getting worse as well. In fact, the drop in municipal voting is significantly worse than the drop in both federal and provincial voting. So for me there's just trying to connect, you know, the logic of the argument then that it's the Party system that's driving the cynicism that contributes to low voter turnout, or a decreased voter turnout, but yet the evidence would appear that it's even worse municipally where there is no Party system. So what do you think of that, what do you make of that?
MR. FAWSON: I haven't been able to track the voter turnout decline at the municipal level that you're speaking of, Maureen. I think the province stopped putting those statistics together in 1997, I believe, I haven't been able to get them. I know in my own tiny, little district, 1997 was the first time I ran here in the Dayspring area, and the voter turnout was 35 per cent; and the second time, in 2000, it was 45 per cent; and in 2004, it was 55 per cent. I attribute that to the fact that those were contested elections, oftentimes they're by acclamation, and just by getting people interested in the process, I think, was able to make that difference. Now, it did go back down this time, actually, my district went down to 46 per cent which is unfortunate.
I think that, again, you know, elections are only one small way that people can participate in the process and that's not enough. People need more than that, that's where the cynicism comes from, I think, and at the municipal level we do have those possibilities. We can get people to come out and sit on committees and so forth and get involved. I don't see how that can happen at the provincial and certainly not at the federal level.
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MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Ms. MacDonald, and thank you very much, Mr. Fawson, for your presentation this evening.
MR. FAWSON: Okay, thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Next on my list is Evelyn Snyder. Just have a seat Evelyn and state your full name and your address.
MS. EVELYN SNYDER: I'm Evelyn Snyder, from Bridgewater. I have a sore throat.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Take your time.
MS. SNYDER: I came tonight to make some suggestions. First of all, I've worked in the federal and provincial elections for the past 15 to 17 years. My suggestion is to try to get agents out in the schools more, as soon as the elections are called. I think we need to send revision agents there. I also think we need to send them in large apartment buildings. I think we need to get ads on the Internet, whether it's on Facebook or through other means.
I also think we need to hire the revision agents earlier. This year they were only called about, I think, 14 days before the election. I also think the election was down from 42 days to 37 days and I really think that 37 days is not long enough, because we got so many people to try and reach.
The other thing, too, this year we started with special ballots and those special ballots started pretty much a few days after the election was called. We had a booth set up in Elections Canada's office here in Bridgewater. You could come in and you could cast your vote by special ballot. If you knew your candidate's name, you wrote it in, until the ballots were printed, and then when you came in you could see your candidate's name and the ballots were exactly like what you have on election day.
I really think that special ballot could be promoted more than it was in this federal election and I really think the special ballot could also continue on to at least three days before the regular polling day.
We have a lot who turned out this year, but we also missed a lot. When I say missed a lot, the revision agents were not fully trained to let you know, when you came in to register to vote, to make sure that you were on the voters' list. A lot of those people went out without knowing that they could vote that particular moment. We had terrible training this federal election and I don't understand why. A lot of the same, regular people were hired, but I think maybe it came on to us so fast that we didn't have the training that we should have had.
Also, there were problems with the time of day in which you get out into the apartment buildings. We had a lot of voter cards that came back in the mail just simply
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because the last three digits of the postal codes were changed. The post office actually sent back thousands, which is ridiculous. I, for one, had a postal change and my card was returned, and I worked there along with a number of other people as well.
As far as I am concerned, I think the Parties are running on the same plans. I think they wait until one candidate says what he's going to run for, or his program, and the other one jumps right on the same ship. I think we have a lot of different issues than each candidate running on the same issues, both federally and provincially. That's about it. Sorry, I'm kind of nervous because I'm scared I'm going to start to cough.
MR. CHAIRMAN: No, that's fine, you did very well. Mr. Dunn.
MR. PATRICK DUNN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's not a question, it's a comment with regard to the workers or the agents at the polls and so on. I can't speak for this area here, but I can speak for a few areas and at times it is very difficult to get people to work at the polls. I agree with you in regard to giving them the opportunity to in-service them, train them and so on, so that they can answer questions when people come to the polls. I'm sure that you would agree that it's very difficult to get the ones working at the polls together for a session in order to do that. You can always get some, but it seems you can never get them all, it is a difficult thing. I agree with you there, where I'd like to see people working the polls to be more in tune with the questions that are being fired at them and so on, but it is becoming more and more difficult to get people to do that.
MS. SNYDER: With the DROs and the poll clerks, this federal election, at least in our riding here, they were not hired or called to come to work until after then advance polls were closed and then they discovered they couldn't vote, so we had a fair amount of DROs quit on us. They weren't actually told that they could vote by transfer certificates and some didn't understand what a transfer certificate was, so they elected not to work as a DRO or poll clerk, just because they couldn't get out there and vote in their own riding. So that's another issue, I think, with the DROs and poll clerks.
[7:30 p.m.]
We do have 37 days, I mean that is certainly long enough to have somebody come in and train those people in pairs. Whether you only train 10 at a time, or 12 at a time, once that election is called then, in my opinion, those DROs and poll clerks probably should be called almost immediately. Whether the candidates do their own training and try to train them before Elections Nova Scotia or Elections Canada calls them to come in, they are very important and we need to get them trained. We also need to get them hired before the advance polls are closed again.
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MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Mr. Bain.
MR. KEITH BAIN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I understand that you worked at the recent polls?
MS. SNYDER: Yes, I worked for Elections Canada.
MR. BAIN: We heard in our visits throughout the province about the mass confusion and I'm saying mass because it depended on where you were and who was affected, I guess, people without their photo ID and various other circumstances. In your situation I would be interested to know, did you have people who, after going through the hassle, they didn't have the adequate ID, they would say the heck with this, I'm not voting, I'm gone?
MS. SNYDER: It only happened to me once when an accountant came in who had qualifications and he had written authorization to vote for a particular client of his and to act on her behalf. I explained to him that we could set up a special ballot for her, we could probably go to her home, or some other means to have him bring her in. All he really wanted to do was actually have her civic address changed from his mailing address. He had quite a hassle to do that. As far as I was concerned, he had every legal document to have it changed, but my supervisor said no, until she went up and spoke to her supervisor and then came back in and said, oh yeah, it's no problem. The rules I had - I didn't see any problem, but she really kind of gave him a rough time and he kind of felt, gee if I have to go through this. Before he left I said, well you can vote right now if you wish, so he took the opportunity.
MR. BAIN: You didn't see a real problem with the photo ID and providing . . .
MS. SNYDER: They didn't, to me, and from the information - I had gotten reports back from our DROs, no, they were aware they had to show some ID and most people had it ready.
MR. BAIN: That's great, thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Bain and thank you, Evelyn, for your presentation, you did very well.
MS. SNYDER: Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Next we have Mr. Dick Crawford. Mr. Crawford, if you would just state your full name and your address for us.
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MR. DICK CRAWFORD: My name is Dick Crawford and I live near Mahone Bay. I want to thank you, both the chairman and members of the committee, for giving me this opportunity to make a presentation. I want to identify myself a little more because you'll see where my comments come from.
I'm the retired Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Maritime Life and my chairmanship ceased at the end of 2004, when Maritime was merged into Manulife. I voted in every election since I was old enough to do so, but I didn't get actively involved in the political Party until I turned age 70, when my colleague, Bill Black, decided to seek election to the Legislature as a Progressive Conservative for Halifax Citadel. I took part in that nomination, the leadership contest in the 2006 provincial election, and I found it fascinating and stimulating. I've also worked for Mike Baker and Gerald Keddy in the 2006 elections and for Mr. Keddy in the recent federal election.
I wanted to ask the chairman if - I have a text which I was going to leave with your secretary, but I would prefer to talk around it. Would you be kind enough to give me a two-minute warning when you really want me to stop talking, so that I can jump to the conclusion.
MR. CHAIRMAN: We've been fairly liberal, if I can use that term, with . . .
MR. CRAWFORD: Flexible sounds better.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Is flexible better? I thought liberal was all right, but let's say flexible then, with the amount of time that we've allowed people to go, so certainly, Mr. Crawford, if you do get too long winded according to the committee, we'll let you know, but I think you should be fine.
MR. CRAWFORD: In my place, that's a great danger.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Well you don't need to follow your text, we certainly welcome you to speak freely.
MR. CRAWFORD: As the first speaker said, I think your mandate covering both the issues of increasing the percentage and suggesting measures to enhance the effectiveness of our representative form of government is a well-balanced mandate.
I'm going to deal with issues as I've seen them over this three-year period - and I don't have a package of remedies to offer you, but I think we've got to start on the path to improve the system. The views I express are my own; I'm the only person responsible for them. I have six areas to touch on: demographics and social change; change in communication systems; complexity of issues; negativity and cynicism; electoral district organization; and education.
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First of all, on demographics and social change. We're seeing the aging of the baby boomers and the profound effect they're going to have on the health care system and shortages in the workforce. Retirement at age 75 will become the norm by 2050. I will be long gone so you can't hold me to it, but it has to be, both from a health and activity point of view, an upward trend in retirement age quite apart from the financial collapse in the last couple of weeks. In addition we're seeing a massive intergenerational transfer of assets as this baby boomer cohort of our population completes their life cycle and passes on, and I've found the democratic process is suffering from the limited hours that mid-career adults can devote to politics. Family needs and local volunteer activity are the priorities, and many of the extracurricular activities that were once provided by the schools are now only available if there's volunteer parental participation.
The other thing I see which I am puzzled over, and I don't like it, is the growth of a personal entitlement ethic. People want their issues solved their way and they don't seem to be concerned if their view doesn't happen to be the only view or even the majority. As I went door to door there was a lot of negativity on the Atlantic Accord directed at both Mr. Harper and Mr. Keddy. The budget vote and the drama that followed were on the top of their minds - those people weren't very interested that a favourable solution for Nova Scotia had been delivered after much intense negotiation which took place out of the public view.
As we've heard tonight, democracy can be structured either by direct government, which was described as participatory government, or by representative government - but we seem to be behaving as if we want to layer direct government over top of representative government, and I think this is basically impossible.
My secondary is change in communication systems. I'm not an expert, in fact the words I have here I have to read because I don't use them - text messaging, YouTube, and Facebook are exploding as communication techniques. The Royal Family has a Web site on YouTube and I checked it today and saw the quite interesting latest videos that are on it. But what effect is this having on representative democracy? All I know is that it only takes a nanosecond for an event, good or bad, to be transmitted all over the world by anyone and to anyone. It has been widely used in the U.S. presidential race. Analyzing its effect is going to use up the one year before the next race starts for 2012.
Teenagers apparently text message so much of their time that the capacity of the Internet system is threatened. Now do you think any messages relate to provincial politics? I don't. Television has adopted "man in the street" interviews as if they were really news; we're invited to e-mail our views on issues of the day which generates quotes the following day; and when really pressed to fill time journalists interview each other or give voice-over the picture of a politician speaking. Are these higher forms of journalism? I don't think so. Finally we have been subject to a new term, "robocalls', during the election campaign, to support, to give, to vote. Are these supplementing or replacing person-to-person contact? I've heard consistently negative reactions to robocalls.
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My third point is complexity of issues. When I was campaigning for Mike Baker in 2006, I thought I should learn how the provincial budget is developed and be ready to answer questions about it. As this group well knows, it starts with the publication of the financial statements for the previous year, followed by financial projection parameters which the government presents to the Auditor General for approval - sort of a structure around which the projections will be made.
There have been changes to the legislation constraining the use of certain payments from the federal government toward debt reduction. I could go on and on, but the whole process runs for a full year and it has several checks and balances built in, many of which have happened just in recent years. It's all available on a CD-ROM and it's easy to search, provided you have hours and hours to put into it. I began to realize how difficult it is to make short summary statements, either in support of or in opposition to, a budget.
So, the government seizes on a few highlighted items and the Opposition seizes on a few areas where strong statements can be made which fit into the length of sound bites for consumption by the public.
Similarly, the health care situation in our province and our country is dauntingly complex. We all agree wait times are too long, we all agree there's a shortage of health care professionals throughout the province, with the most critical need being in the rural areas. ER open times are curtailed or closed down and the cost of health care is growing as the population grows older.
We want the best possible care for ourselves and our families. But, we also acknowledge that we can't all have limitless health care. We fear the approach of difficult priority decisions.
These are just a few examples of complexity. How can these issues be discussed among the voting population so that one Party's platform can be compared to another during election? It's too late to start an educational process in the middle of an election so oversimplified promises get made and then broken in the eyes of the electorate. But it is far too boring to say on the campaign, this is a very difficult and important issue, our Party will do its very best to improve the situation - if you elect us.
This fuels the growth of the next area I want to touch on - negativity and cynicism. From the day that Stéphane Dion became Leader of the Liberals, the Conservatives embarked on a series of attack ads to diminish Dion's chance of building a stronger Liberal organization. I strongly reject this approach and it diminishes the character of our democratic system. Apparently, however, attack ads work. If they didn't, they wouldn't use them. This means that only the Canadian public, as the target of these ads, has the power to stop them.
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The Party war rooms, these 300 pound gorillas that we rarely see, do not seem to be constrained by any normal sense of decency. The recent federal election was, in Mr. Keddy's view, the nastiest of the five he has contested. The debates in our riding were a disgrace, they were in this room, and they were a disgrace, but since only the cheering sections for the candidates were present, I don't think it affected the public at large at all, apart from generating a few headlines in our local press.
[7:45 p.m.]
More importantly, I think the national TV debates were also a disgrace. Mr. Harper was programmed to react calmly to anything or anyone, however outrageous or inaccurate, so he just smiled weakly while he was being accused of having no plan for the financial crisis, no plan to exit Afghanistan, and so on. I can't give you more examples because I turned it off. There must be a better way for our multi-Party system to debate the real issues in a more informative manner.
I thought of having round-robin debates - this is not in my text, I suppose it will get in Hansard, which is too bad - with five Parties. That comes to 10 one-on-ones in both languages and I don't really know how you would do the quarters, semis and finals, so I don't think that works but there must be a better way to debate the real issues among the Leaders of our national Parties.
I encountered a good deal of cynicism, both in the coffee klatch at the Irving or Tim's as well as in door-to-door calls. This seems to be an accepted way to escape any serious discussion. Being a cynic seems to be a more admirable quality than being a supporter - whether of an issue or a candidate or Party.
My fifth area is electoral district organization. I think here I am coming to some remedies which I think can be put in place. I've noticed from the reports on the Web site that your committee is already discussing the mechanics of the voting system with election officials and I certainly agree with the comments that Evelyn Snyder made just a few minutes ago. I guess we were both involved at different places in that and I think the mechanics that were suggested to your committee are fine. The only one I would emphasize is that the accessibility to polling stations is an increasing issue as our population ages. I found that Elections Canada headquarters had no steps either from the curb to the threshold of the door or any inside. So I spent some time driving six - it turned out to be elderly ladies, but I don't think there's anything in that - because by far the Elections Canada headquarters was the easiest place to vote. So I think that is an issue.
Now I'm told by long-time Party workers, they're my age but they've been working all their lives with the Parties, that the poll district organization was the key element in getting a good turnout for the votes. The area representatives on each Party's local executive were supposed to keep that vital between elections. As far as I can tell, only the NDP does
[Page 14]
a reasonably good job of that, and I believe it has paid out well for them. My hypothesis, as yet unproven, is that the NDP had a higher percentage of their adherence voting in our riding than did the Conservatives, in this recent federal election. I believe that held true in the 2006 provincial election in the Lunenburg riding, but it can't be tested accurately because of the weakness of our poll organizations.
As Evelyn said, we struggled to get a full slate of DROs for the election, and trained, right up until the Saturday before the election, let alone having a full complement of scrutineers, runners, phoners and drivers. Now in the provincial election I at least saw some of that in place and it did work to get more people voting during the day by having that full system in place. So I believe that rejuvenating and revitalizing the poll organization within each electoral district should be a prime objective of every Party. The next elections start today. We may well have a provincial election this Fall or next Spring and who knows how soon the next federal election will be.
Finally then, education, and I've had the real privilege of presenting Business Basics to two Grade 6 classes on behalf of Junior Achievement. Their minds are quick and alert and they won't tolerate boring presentations. Their insights are far beyond their years. In short, they are a delight and JA also has a program, The Economics of Staying in School, presented to Grade 9 students. Now, here involvement with the students is more of a challenge, but hands-on planning worksheets we give them of the finances for their own apartment and car produces some important insights when compared to the jobs in earnings expected for those who leave school before Grade 12. By the end of the morning some of the more - I use sophisticated students, but that means the cool ones I guess - honestly admitted that they had gotten some value from the morning.
My point is that knowledge of our political system and the governance of Canada must be re-entered into the school curriculum in a manner which engages the students in more than the descriptive mechanics of how each level of government is structured.
When the PC leadership race was on, I discovered that Park View School had a political science course in the Spring term, conveniently beginning in January 2006. I proposed to them that the class appoint six members who would become fully engaged in the race, two supporting each candidate. They would be elected delegates with voting rights. They would report back to their class on each phase of the process. Sadly, this seemed to be disruptive to the class schedule and there might be complaints from other political Parties. So what? Why couldn't it be done for all Parties, embedding them, in the military terminology, embedding them right into the local Parties' team. They are greatly needed and they would learn a lot that isn't in the textbooks.
There's no quick fix I can think of for the education of adults, but we must start with a fresh generation of voters and try to reverse the apathy and indifference with the result of a much greater percentage participation in the electoral process and much more informed
[Page 15]
citizens to face the daunting tasks of the coming century. Thank you for permitting me to contribute to your committee. Just as I close I truly want to commend you and I do admire each one of you not just for this committee but for your total job as MLAs dedicated to the better governance of Nova Scotia.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Crawford. You certainly stayed well within your time limits but thank you for your presentation and for your kind words at the end. I'm sure that all committee members thank you for your many years of dedication to a Nova Scotia success story which was Maritime Life and your leadership in doing that. Any questions from committee members? Mr. Parker.
MR. CHARLES PARKER: Mr. Crawford, very interesting presentation, I thank you for it. You mentioned you were 70 years old before you actually became involved in the political process with a political Party. I'm sure you voted all those previous years but weren't directly involved. You mentioned about children and how to get them involved in the school system but do you have any magic solutions in perhaps how to get adults involved? Before the age of 70, but at any age, how do we get more people engaged in the process? It took you a personal friend for yourself to get involved but any suggestions on how to get other adults involved?
MR. CRAWFORD: I think that's the toughest area and I think the pressures as I look at my own children who are in their late 40s and my grandchildren who are just growing up to teenagers, their time schedule is unbelievable. I know the ones, not in my family because they live in Toronto, but the families around here are tremendously involved in the fire departments and other volunteer organizations that support the community. I think the interest of their children because if you do have a dynamic program for young people in high school that has to begin to filter up to the parents. I think it would stimulate involvement so I prefer bottom up to top down.
MR. PARKER: Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Parker. Mr. Wilson.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): Thank you, Mr. Crawford for your presentation this evening. You've mentioned the issue of accessibility to voting stations and so on. It has come up before us not only here at public meetings but in our focus groups that we've been talking with as well. When you put obstacles in the way of people going to vote they won't vote. It's as simple as sometimes asking for identification. People generally feel they have the right to vote, they should be on a list and they shouldn't be asked to identify themselves at a voting station and when they get ticked off they leave. They don't vote.
[Page 16]
So we've been hearing from people and we've suggested such things as some form of Internet voting perhaps, wondering if that's a no-brainer. Should we be voting over the Internet? Not only would that bring more youth to the table to vote but it would allow more accessibility to our seniors who may not be able to get out to voting stations and so on. Should we locate voting stations in schools, in nursing homes, in hospitals? Should we have more mobile voting stations? What I'm looking for is just your opinion on that issue of accessibility.
MR. CRAWFORD: Well I won't take you up on the Internet partly because I don't know it well.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): Speaking of the Internet, that's mine. Excuse me, I'll turn it off. Sorry Mr. Chairman.
MR. CRAWFORD: You can go ahead and text message.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): I'm not texting, I'm turning it off Mr. Crawford, believe me.
MR. CRAWFORD: So I'll stay away from the Internet but I do think the other forms of aiding the people - I don't think we can rebuild all of our polling stations to make them easily accessible but I do think we could simplify the method of helping the ill or disabled to vote. The process at the federal election I was allowed to carry a card to a friend of mine who just had a hip operation and return his authorization to the election central, but then they had to mail it to him - I wasn't allowed to carry it back to him. Then I was allowed, after he completed it and it was sealed in the double envelopes, to carry it back to Elections Canada. So we could control the time element reasonably well that way.
I really don't know about this ID process. I was called by the provincial office of Mike Baker to take a lady from an apartment in Lunenburg to the polls, she couldn't get there. So I drove up to get her and she was sitting out waiting for me; it was a nice day. She got in the car and I asked her about her ID and she said sure, I've got it. I said well, the best of all is your - not your driver's licence, but do you have your health card with you? She said I always carry it with me. So, fumble, fumble, fumble - no health card She said I've left it on my bed upstairs, but I can't climb those stairs twice a day - she's on the second floor of an apartment. So, I said all right, let's go down and see what we can do.
On the way by, I picked up the person in Mike Baker's office who had phoned me, who knew this lady, and we both went down to the poll station and we're going through the routine with the DRO or the boss who intercepts us and of course, wouldn't you know, in the process of the re-fumble through the purse, the health card pops out - so we got her to vote with no problem at all.
[Page 17]
The wind-up to the story is she phoned the office in serious anger the next morning to say that Michael Baker wasn't even on the ballot.(Laughter) So I don't think that answers your question, but it's an area we have to work on.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Wilson, and again thank you, Mr. Crawford, for your presentation this evening.
Next we have Keith Trimper. Sir, if you could just state your full name and your address for us.
MR. KEITH TRIMPER: I'm Keith Trimper from Bridgewater.
To you, the panel, thank you for this opportunity to place my feelings before you on this topic of ways to increase voter turnout.
[8:00 p.m.]
First of all, I want to briefly tell you a bit about myself, so you have a better idea of where I'm coming from, since I'm speaking basically for myself. I have spent my working career as a high school teacher; retired, I have served on several community boards; I am an actor in dinner theatres for the past 16 years; I am the coordinator for 90 senior bowlers here in Bridgewater; and I occasionally teach at nursing homes, particularly in Bridgetown.
I have a keen interest in this given topic. I perhaps am considered to be a political junkie - you can decide what that is. My first interest is in the word "democracy." In recent times the word has been used frequently by communist states, dictatorships - Cuba, China - however, in the so-called Western world, democracy appears to mean something else.
Panel, one of your tasks, I would think, is to define what we mean by the word democracy in that report that someday you may get around to putting out for everyone to read. Once this definition as you see it, or as the academics out there see it, will it then enable us to better appreciate the process of voting. Is it possible that the reasons for low voter turnout in our three types of elections are because we, the voter, have little understanding of what the Western world means by democracy? Whether we vote or not, do we have a clear understanding of what this process is about?
What do I think? Well I'm still reading, wondering, and listening on this point. And few people talk about democracy, and at election time they say oh, I voted, or I didn't vote. But I do hear ex-Premier John Hamm on CBC Radio explaining how disappointed he is with the present voter turnout. He even went on to suggest bringing back Civics classes to the schools, and I think he is suggesting, too, that this would lead to a better turnout at the polls.
[Page 18]
I understand his disappointment with voter numbers, for after all, that committee has spent $10 million on 250 years of responsible government here in Nova Scotia. And I'm still wondering what $1,400 worth of peppermints or breath mints - how is that connected to democracy? But someday we may find out.
Panel, the ex-Premier's thinking is way over the hill; it's outdated in my opinion. Our children study Civics maybe to the end of junior high in an informal, non-textbook manner. Then we cause them to wait five to seven years before they can vote. How can this be an answer to get young people to vote? I have a suggestion for getting youth interested in voting. Some of our Grade 12 students qualify to vote, but most don't. I propose to this panel that any student in Grades 10 to 12 be on the voters' list - at age 16 we can drive; we can draw EI; possibly join the military; we can be a father; we can be a mother; you can hunt with a rifle; buy and drive a four-wheeler or car. What an interesting place a school would be prior to an election - spontaneous civics at its best. And politicians would come to the schools, talk about their platforms and have good reasons for being there - these guys vote.
I submit to you, panel, that this process would carry over into the adult world. To reinforce this suggestion, I remind you that I teach Civics and local History in an education program at Mountain Lea Lodge, Bridgetown, and in that room will be 30 to 35 residents. I assume they all have the right to vote. Well, in the space of 20 to 30 minutes 10 guests will be snoring - and I haven't started yet - 10 will appear to be awake and 10 will be anxious to learn what Keith has to say and verbalize with me, and the laws of our province deny the right to vote to Grade 10s, most of whom are mentally alert, some very aware, and panel, this is the year 2008. The laws that deny these people the right to vote were written when?
Panel, I ask you to be forward in your thinking in this matter. Allow our high schools to promote political processes with a view to enfranchising.
Two points made in this past federal election are rather telling. Schools and adults to age 25 generally supported the Liberals' Green Shift Plan and Elizabeth May stated that she would have won her seat had youth been allowed to vote. Youth and adults are prone to accept what high-profile entertainers tell them, but no politicians, please. Should Sidney Crosbie, Natalie MacMaster, or George Canyon be seen on TV, the Internet and in the press, strongly suggesting that you get out and vote, a week or two before the election, might people be more encouraged to go to the poll? And try a non-political advertisement sponsored by respected community charities, or even the CBC, ATV, the press, et cetera, who would point out to people, a week or a few days before the election, please vote. The media is not kind to political Parties, most times.
In my opinion the media creates cynicism, distrust and toilet humour about politicians. Should they make a verbal or physical stumble, this is reported not once but many times. The viewing public learns to dislike politicians just from the coverage of the
[Page 19]
media. This process is far from fair, yet we don't want media censorship, but we sure expect fairness and, in the absence of fairness, voters grow cynical and don't vote.
Yes, political Parties need to censor their ads. The puffin poop was vulgar. It was a most immature scene and I suggest that senior folk found it offensive. Political ads need to be positive, they need to be informative and they need to cause people to think. Negative ads lead to scorn and voter apathy.
In the past elections, five years, people may have been denied the right to vote in rural Nova Scotia. I have learned that elderly folk who lived next to a polling station for 20 years were driven, or had to drive, 11 kilometres to their place of voting. Three people in the same home were asked to vote in three different polls, driving long distances from their nearest poll.
Recently, in this past election, my friend walked to a poll with identification, one piece of identification, everyone in that poll she knew and they knew her. She was denied to vote until she brought in a second identification. She was very embarrassed and did not return to vote. I submit to you panel, that this is only the tip of the iceberg. I suggest to you that hundreds of voters have stayed away from the polls in the past elections based on their experience in their previous ones. Further I suggest that if there is no remediation in polling stations and the willingness to get people to vote in their nearest poll the voter decline will be downward and downward.
In the rural communities, from what I gather, this is a real hassle about whether you brought along proper identification or you didn't. I'm not clear about what goes on in a place like Halifax-Dartmouth. Door to door enumeration did have its advantages. Awareness of the pending election, place of residence and most times, the enumerator could suggest the location of the poll. Again, I stress that voters want to vote in their nearest poll. Long distances will keep voters away, especially our senior citizens.
I have saved my best topic for last. I believe that politicians have done more to cause voters to stay away from the polls than any other cause. A politician's character needs to be golden, squeaky clean. If there are blemishes on the candidate's character, the political Party and the candidate may pay a high price from coast to coast. There will be those who won't vote because of all the controversy surrounding that Party or candidate. I believe that Canadians are quite understanding about some human frailties but the blemishes must be exposed before the nomination. However, if the taint comes out after the nomination, the media has a field day for the next week. Case in point, don't jump in a pond nude, in front of teenagers, even if it took place six years previous.
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[8:15 p.m.]
Voters can smoke the weed but not good for politicians. I suggest to you that the Mulroney-Schreiber affair, the Liberal payback scheme in Quebec, the Ernie Fage driving alcohol problems, the misuse of government cars, the municipal councillor in Cape Breton's education, gas and food paid from the public purse plus many other similar tales, causes people to be negative about political Parties and their representatives. Time and again the voters see the Canadian politician as a crook, a liar and a thief. Why should you ever vote for that Party or person? Voting is seen as supporting corruption.
Panel, if politicians want the public's support politicians must earn it. Politicians, political Parties have lied to the voters in the past. The trust factor is not present - I'm not voting for those bandits, we so often hear. People will buy rag magazines so as to reinforce that information about that political Party or character. Panel, the political house must be morally clean - integrity, integrity, integrity is a must.
Finally, the less we hear, see and smell of political debacles, the more positive the vibes will be for us to take time out to vote. You have a challenge, panel. Thank you very much.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Trimper, for your presentation. Mr. Dunn.
MR. DUNN: Thank you. Mr. Trimper, you mentioned earlier that you have a background in education, which is similar to mine in a previous career. Comments have been made across the province on a number of occasions - some presenters felt that politics should be introduced in our schools at a very early age, as early as Grade 2 or Grade 3, of course meeting the students in the curriculum at that particular level, and consistently following all through the grades until they complete their Grade 12 and receive their diploma. I just wanted to ask your opinion on that comment.
MR. TRIMPER: I can appreciate the fact that you would perhaps introduce the idea of political ideas at a Grade 2 or Grade 3 level - is our new school to be built on Queen Street or is it better to be built on Pleasant Street, type of thing, that kind of a political thing.
I spent all of my career in the high schools, but it's been my experience that even the Grade 7s and 8s would oftentimes be a bit on the bored side when the politicians came in to present their platform. There certainly was more interest at a Grade 10, 11 or 12 level. As to whether you want to go back to a Grade 2, elementary level, I don't have much background with that, but I can certainly see the children coming from parents who are very much involved in a political issue, they could carry that over into Grades 2, 3, 4 and 5. That makes sense there.
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It just doesn't seem right that you have these students in Grades 10, 11 and 12 and we bring in you people to present your platforms, but they might have to wait two, three, four, five more years before they can exercise their right to vote. One of the things I think would be terrific, if only our Grade 10s, 11s, and 12s could vote, that behaviour that went on in the classroom and in the schools, that would go on with them into their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s - they would become active in politics or understand the political process much better.
I just don't get it when you people or when governments, for instance, think that the magic age is 18. I go into these nursing homes and let me tell you, I have questions. I would think you would too.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Minister Bolivar-Getson.
HON. CAROLYN BOLIVAR-GETSON: Thank you for your presentation. One thing you did bring up is the ability to be able to vote at your nearest poll, and I think that's definitely something that should be happening. I know there have been some people who have been misplaced on voting day and have travelled by their nearest polls in order to cast that ballot, and that really shouldn't be happening. I think it's important to communicate to our constituents, when they receive that card, to make sure that they do look at it and see where that polling district is to make sure that they are voting in their local communities and make it as easy as possible to make sure that they can go to that poll on election day.
I just want to pick up a little bit on what was said about the youth and the ages and so on. Being a mother of three children - one in Grade 8, one in Grade 11 and one in Grade 12 - I fully appreciate the need to introduce civics into our school system. I do believe that we should be introducing it at an early age - no, we can't take it into a Grade 2 class to the point where we're going to bore them with a platform, but I think there are other ways to take it into a Grade 2 or elementary-school level.
I'm going to use the example of the mock election that was held as part of the D250 initiative where they actually ran their own election. They had their ballot boxes set up, scrutineers were put in place, and they got an idea of what the feel would be when they walked inside that poll - also realizing, yes, that does need to carry on throughout. That happening in Grade 4 or Grade 5 is not going to be reflected when they're 18, it needs to continue. But I do believe that we need a civics component throughout our school system.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Minister Bolivar-Getson. Mr. Wilson.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Trimper, obviously you've made some very interesting observations and comments. You're a teacher so you were entrusted with teaching the young people of this community. If you were to run for office, at what point do you become dishonest? Why do people say that all politicians are dishonest, and what do we do to change that?
[Page 22]
MR. TRIMPER: I come to your defence - when I hear that, I come to the politician's defence and I always use John Diefenbaker as the example of that. At what point do they become dishonest? You see what happens is the voting public sees what is going on - again, we could use the Mulroney-Schreiber affair. So the question is, I guess what you're asking is, at what point, supposedly, did Mr. Mulroney become a bit dishonest, or dishonest? Of course, the general public would definitely be saying, well, when he got to be Prime Minister, and I don't think that's accurate either, but I've heard it so many times.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): Sure, we all have.
MR. TRIMPER: The thing is, the MLAs, the MPs and our councillors, they get tainted with - it only takes one, and the press is your enemy. You could be out there and you could get a traffic violation and you know that if you have a traffic violation, there's a good possibility that it's going to be on TV, it's going to be on the Internet, it's going to be in The ChronicleHerald, and then people say, oh, look at him, you know, he's no better than we are. But they expect the MLAs to set a very tall order, I think, but that's where they're at and that's one of the problems that I encounter out there with senior citizens. They don't think too much about voting because, well, I don't want to put myself out all that much, you know, it doesn't change anything, you get the same old barrel of rotten apples, and that kind of nonsense. But it's there and you people have to deal with it, I think.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): I agree. It's also impossible to meet those expectations, absolutely impossible. When you said, are we human, of course we are. I was in the media for 24 years before I became a politician, so I guess the best thing I could do would be to criticize myself. I agree with you that the media thing is another thing altogether, you and I could talk for hours on that.
But I just wanted to make one other point, Mr. Chairman, if I may. In some school boards in this province, we as politicians are not allowed in schools. We're prohibited from going in and talking to classes and talking to gatherings of Grade 12s who are about to become eligible to vote. In nine years I've only done it once. It was an all-candidate's debate in a high school and I said to the focus group this morning, it was probably one of the most worthwhile things I've ever done in my life because those kids were interested, they wanted to learn. But since that time - you could never organize that now.
That's a very difficult thing to change in this province and would probably require some sort of a change within school boards themselves, to start allowing and make it almost mandatory so that you could have open debates within your school system, so that we can teach our children exactly what's happening in terms of politics. Anyway, thank you for your presentation.
[Page 23]
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Wilson. Ms. MacDonald.
MS. MAUREEN MACDONALD: Thank you very much, that was a very interesting presentation. I think we probably could have quite a good discussion about many aspects of that presentation, all of us here this evening.
I want to make a comment before I ask you a specific question and it's around the cynicism you speak of. None of us would disagree about the cynicism that is out there - it's very obvious to anybody who's in this political activity, as we are. I guess I often wonder if the cynicism is new, if it's something that's new or if it hasn't always been there.
I grew up in a time when there wasn't Legislative Television but I can sure remember the discussions around the dinner table. There was a lot of cynicism and there were lots of examples of politicians getting into trouble: having criminal charges, alcoholism, sexual harassment, you name it. When you think historically, we had our first Prime Minister with a drinking problem, well-known, other Prime Ministers who spoke to the dead, held seances and what have you. So I mean this is not - I wonder, really, if the cynicism and the kind of outrage that people feel around the activities of their elected officials isn't almost a structural feature of political life. It may not be so new, but I guess we could debate that for a long time.
[8:30 p.m.]
You talked specifically about door-to-door enumeration, and this is something that hasn't come up a lot in our presentations, but one of the things we're hearing is the difficulty of getting people to work in elections on election day. I would think that, therefore, it would also be difficult to get people to do the work of enumerating. To go back, that's a very labour-intensive kind of process.
The Chief Electoral Officer for Nova Scotia has indicated to us that, in fact, the new system now is more accurate. The result of using income tax and using motor vehicle registrations and other databases available to government, in fact, means that there are more people on the voters' lists in the last few elections than at any time previous in our history. In fact, when you start looking at the numbers of people who vote, although the percentage of people who vote, compared to the entire list, indicates a drop, the actual numbers of people who are voting, in many cases, is going up. It's kind of one of those little details that gets lost in the discussion about the drop in percentage of voters, but nevertheless the list may, in fact, be more accurate.
But I was really interested in the points you made about how enumeration served as an educational and promotional opportunity. Do you think there could be other ways that Elections Canada could promote elections, or do that work, other than through enumerations perhaps?
[Page 24]
MR. TRIMPER: Really, a beautiful question, but I'm not so sure that I have the background knowledge to give you any idea whether Elections Canada can do a better job. I would assume, using the present methods, they do. I'm certainly aware that the present methods being used out there don't make all the people who go to those polls on election day happy, and therefore - and again my point is, don't blame the politicians for this problem, somewhere out there it's the so-called people's servants who are the problem.
The politicians have to take the rap for that problem, but indeed, someone out there, unbeknownst to a politician, is deciding that family travels 11 kilometres to vote. Someone is out there doing that and that's what we need to get uncorked. You people, I think, might have the power to uncork that kind of situation, but it really keeps seniors or anyone who had a hassle at a voting booth from going back for more of that kind of medicine. I wish I could have some information for you about Elections Canada, but it's over my head.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Ms. MacDonald, and again thank you, Mr. Trimper, for your presentation and providing us with a typed copy of your presentation as well. Our next presenter is Daryl Gray. Mr. Gray, could you just state your full name for the record and your address.
MR. DARYL GRAY: Yes, good evening. My name is Daryl Gray, I live in Bayswater, Nova Scotia, and I'm here representing myself as an interested citizen. First, I would like to congratulate you and the House for taking on the task of this committee. I think it's very important work and ultimately essential to the well-being of every Nova Scotian.
I have three practical recommendations for the committee. First, I think you need to continue trying to educate the public about why it is important to vote. Usually this is done using terms such as responsibility, democracy and franchise. This has worked for many people, but as the last federal election shows, not nearly enough. I suggest you get a bit hard-nosed about selling the "get out to vote" message. In other words, you may need to get at them in their pocketbook - and no, I'm not going to say to make people pay, or anything, to vote.
You can find out the exact number better than I, but let's say the provincial government takes $10,000 out of the average Nova Scotian's pocket every year in various taxes and fees. I think you may need to state that in advertising and all media in perhaps the following way: The Government of Nova Scotia takes an average of $10,000 out of your wallet every year. If you want a say in how we spend your money, get out and vote. It's very basic, it's very to the point, but sometimes, for some people, that registers. So, who knows, it may hit home with some people and make them vote.
My second suggestion is also practical. Many neighbours I talk to are cynical about politicians. We've heard a bit of this tonight. Some politicians blame this perspective on the media. I don't think politicians are taking their share of the responsibility here. The conduct
[Page 25]
and level of debate in the House of Assembly is at times challenged. I've been there many times. If you want the citizens of Nova Scotia to respect and care about who their elected representatives are, I think you need to change the way you behave in the House in the scrums and in speeches. You deal with too many important issues to reduce the debate to catcalling, shouting and personal attacks.
I have the greatest respect for people who choose to run for elected office and I'm glad representatives of all three Parties are here on this committee. Please, go back to your Leaders and caucuses and demand that they change the tone of debate in the House and in public. Don't shout, don't interrupt, don't engage in personal attacks.
In this, the 25th Anniversary of democracy in our province, I think if you present your arguments in debate and speeches in an intelligent, well-researched, adult way, you will command more respect among the citizens of this province and I'm sure you will make more people think that casting a vote for a politician is something worth doing. I urge you to go back and change the tone of the debate.
Finally, I have a practical suggestion that is a result of the recent federal election that falls within the jurisdiction of the province. This has to do with identification at polls, again we've heard some of that this evening. There were many issues around this in the recent federal election. Most people used their driver's licence which is issued by the province for identification. The problem I, and many people I've run into, had was that our driver's licences had our mailing address on them not our civic address. My civic address is 3 Riley's Lake Road in Bayswater Nova Scotia; my mailing address is 3 Riley's Lake Road, RR#1 Hubbards B0J 1T0. There are about a dozen communities that have RR#1 Hubbards as their mailing address, they vote in many different polls.
I've heard from neighbours that some people had problems voting because their driver's licence had the mailing address on it, not their civic address which is more accurate. I know this was a federal election and I don't know if proof of identification will be an issue in the next provincial election but for some people it was too much of a hassle and it discouraged them from voting.
I know when I last registered my car I submitted both my civic and my mailing address. I suggest you ask the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal and the Registry of Motor Vehicles to print citizens' civic addresses on their driver's licence and not their mailing addresses. It's a small thing but it may make it easier for people to vote in all elections. I wish you every success in your committee's work and thank you for taking the time for listening to my suggestions.
[Page 26]
MR. CHAIRMAN: Well thank you very much, Mr. Gray. It was a very direct presentation and well put together. I want to thank you for providing us with those recommendations. If there are no questions from the committee, thank you again for your - oh, Mr. Wilson.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): I'm interested in your comments about the tone of debate. Being a participant, sometimes, in exactly what you're talking about (Interruption) I said sometimes, yes I did. I know, and I think we all know here, that's part of a tradition in our parliamentary democracy, in the Legislature, that that's somewhat accepted to a certain degree. Since I've come on the scene, in 9 years, it has it's ups and downs, sometimes it's there and sometimes it's not depending on the issue, depending on whether the cameras are in the gallery, whatever the case may be. We keep hearing about that, you're not the first person to say that. In the last week or two, however long we've been at this, that keeps coming up.
I'm interested in hearing your opinion again, a little more in detail on exactly what you would do to stop that. What would you change? Do you tell someone who has been sent to a Legislature to represent people when they're talking about an issue that may be very important to the people they represent, not to say anything about it? Not to interrupt? We can be having a round table discussion right here and we can have a conversation that people will maybe come in with a differing opinion, or whatever the case may be, but keep it civil. I'm interested also in the fact that you've been there, you've seen it. How would you change it? What would you do differently?
MR. GRAY: I think that the Party Leaders and the Parties have to exercise some discipline. I agree that there has been a tradition of that. In the British House of Commons it's sort of the Yea, Nay, sort of thing. But what I've seen is constant interruption, constant shouting, and what I've seen for the most part, is not a debate. I've seen somebody trying to make some points, possibly, or maybe the person who has the floor is not really saying as much as they should either, but it just seems to become a banter back and forth, as opposed to a debate. I think if somebody has the floor then they should be able to make a good strong argument for whatever it is they're talking about. Again, it shouldn't be superfluous, it shouldn't be something that is just filling time. I mean I would hope that if somebody was going to read Hansard that you would be able to get information, debates, and something that reflects the concerns of the citizens of the province.
I'm not sure, you know the Rules of the House more than I, but I'm not sure that it's appropriate for people to keep trying to interrupt, keep shouting over, keep yelling over somebody who has the floor and is trying to say something. To me, certainly people, my neighbours, when they see this, either if they've ever been to the House, or if they see it on the legislative channel, or if they've seen it on television, these people are just out of control. It removes the ability to listen to the debate, listen to what's being said and it becomes all about this back and forth shouting.
[Page 27]
I'm not sure that is - you know a debate between people, usually, in the House I think, you have the floor alternately, if it's Question Period and if a question is asked, there's an answer, there's a supplementary question, there's an answer and it moves on. But for somebody to be trying to give an answer and have other people constantly shouting and so on, I think that really turns people off.
MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): No, actually, not every member has the right to stand and be heard in the Legislature. Nothing is recorded unless it is said when you're standing and with your mike on. We also have a Speaker of the Legislature and we have rules. There are certain things you're not allowed to say, certain phrases you're not allowed to use. You're not allowed to impinge upon anyone's character or anything like that in the Legislature. I'm not allowed to criticize the Speaker, so I'm going to be quiet right now, and I wouldn't, but I'm saying that in the past there have been various Speakers who - the decorum in the Legislature, the decorum in Parliament, in any Parliament, is left up to the Speaker of the House. They have the control over what takes place there.
I agree with you, anyone who watches the Parliamentary channel, anyone who watches Legislative TV, will hear or see stuff that has become, in my experience, very, very personal and that's where you lose the spirit of the debate.
MR. GRAY: I would suggest that - and yes, you're right, the Speaker has the authority - but I would suggest that if your respective Leaders laid down the law and said okay, from this day forward we're not going to interrupt, we will take our turn. I think you probably listen to your Leaders more than the Speaker and that's my suggestion.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Again thank you very much, Mr. Gray, for your presentation this evening.
[8:45 p.m.]
Our next presenter is Paul Pross. Just state your full name, for the record, and your address.
MR. PAUL PROSS: My name is Paul Pross and I live at Indian Path, which is near Riverport. I'd like to thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to say a few words to you about this. A couple of you know who I am and probably think that I'm going to talk about NDP participation in electoral politics, but it's not the case.
I'm going to draw on my experience as an academic. I was trained as a political scientist and I worked in the School of Public Administration at Dalhousie for nearly 30 years. I taught in the area of policy, policy formulation, policy analysis, natural resource administration, and in particular, I was very interested in interest groups and lobbying. I didn't do very much, throughout my career, in the field of electoral studies or Party studies,
[Page 28]
but when you look at interest groups, and you look at lobbying, and you look at policy in general, you learn a great deal about how the system works and how the electoral system works.
Since retiring, I have taken to politics a little bit and been involved in several elections and I've also taken to being involved in a couple of what you could call advocacy groups, so I'm coming at this from various angles.
I've given you a little handout, but I'll just sort of run through the main heads, if you don't mind. Being an academic, I tend to not focus directly on the question that's asked, I tend to sort of spread myself around, but I do hope that at the end of the little discussion here you'll see that I'm trying to get at your core issues.
You know I think it's very important for us to always remember that the electoral system that we have reflects our political culture and as that, we have to understand that when a person goes to vote, they're doing so because they've had innumerable experiences and we've heard quite a few references to those different kinds of experiences tonight. Obviously, schooling is a very important part of our decision to vote.
Frankly, I didn't get introduced to civics when I was in Primary school or even until Grade 8 or 9. When I did get introduced to it I was given a really first-rate text and an excellent teacher, and I learned a good deal about the Government of Canada. I think that stuck with me, it stuck with me long enough to take me into a political science program in university, anyway. I think we could go to a lower level in the school system in introducing children to how electoral systems work, what the responsibilities are, sure. I think it is very important, wherever we start, to do a good job of introducing youngsters to civics and to the importance that we attach to being able to participate in elections.
In family life we learn a great deal, in references to that tonight, too, both good and bad. The cynicism that passes across the dinner table is unconsciously adopted by the children as they grow up, perhaps adversely, very often. Here I think we begin to get into an area where the culture really does begin to play an important part. If you are working in an environment which is collegial where you're consulted, where you feel that you can make a difference in the way your organization works, then you're going to take that outside of that environment and apply it in the broader community. I think that helps you orient yourself toward participating in political life, public life.
Then there is life in the community. Here, I think, we begin to get into the kind of situation that governments set up and set up for themselves, where we talk about public consultation, engaging the public, empowering the public, but we constantly have this problem of realizing those ambitions. We repeatedly fail the public or the public feels we failed them as we go to them and say, we want to consult with you about this but by the way, you have relatively little influence on the final decision. If we can improve our processes of
[Page 29]
public consultation and I know that it is very difficult to do that, I think we will encourage the public to take a greater part across the spectrum.
Then there is finally an area that I've been very interested in, the work in civic organizations. My particular area of interest has been in advocacy groups or as I call them, public interest groups. Those are groups where people are engaged, not because they're going to get any specific benefit out of it but because they feel that it's the right thing to do. It's a very sad feature of Canadian politics that these groups are given short shrift again and again by government.
If I want to support a political Party, for example, I can provide money, time and so on, money is important on my income tax account, I can get a credit for my contribution. If I want to support the World Wildlife Fund, I get no encouragement for that. If I am a businessman and I want to lobby any government for some kind of benefit, I can charge the cost of doing that and that cost can be considerable against my corporate income. So there are some really invidious disadvantages applied to people who want to contribute to the public life. I think you can take that and if you're experiencing that kind of discrimination, you say, why should I vote? Why should I give my endorsement to this kind of process?
All too often our experiences in these settings that are solicited, discourage confidence in public institutions. The failure to vote, when we look at our records - and I think you made a very interesting point when you said the data changes a little, but still, 40 per cent - maybe it's only 35 per cent - but 35 per cent is one out of every three people are not voting. That is, as I say here, an obvious sign of a very sullen discontent with politics, and we have a very serious problem then.
Some of my friends said to me, are you going to this? Are you going to talk about proportional representation? I said, no, not particularly. I don't think that fiddling with the electoral laws is really going to make that much difference - it will, it'll help. You can change Party finance laws, for example, and you can get some better involvement. I think, for example, the knowledge that by a corporation giving thousands and thousands to a Party, it enables that Party to buy expensive advertising, that is disenchanting for the average citizen. I was very glad to see Mr. Chrétien, in the recent Canada Elections Act, trying to do away with that kind of corporate giving.
Proportional representation, also, is in a sense just re-jigging things, but it does help. I referred here to an interesting book by a Canadian political scientist, Henry Milner, who looked at a number of countries and looked at voter knowledge, turnout, that sort of thing. He did find that proportional representation does make a difference, it does bring more people out. You want to ask me why and I can give you a few explanations, but I'm not sure that they're all that accurate.
[Page 30]
But what he was more interested in was knowledge. Civic Literacy is the title of his book. He found that voter participation was more closely related to knowing more about the political system and about policy and all those sorts of things than it was to the actual system of voting that you used.
That's a really interesting finding and it suggested to me that if we want to influence public attitudes of voting, you have to go beyond just looking at the Elections Act - important though it is - just looking at the school system, I think you have to establish a number of things and I just mention a few here.
We've heard a lot of discussion this evening about unseemly behaviour amongst politicians. I'm a little bit uneasy with that because we're talking about a representative Assembly. Well, we're not all pure as the driven snow out here so why shouldn't we expect a little bit of unseemly behaviour? We have to have an element of tolerance. Obviously, we don't want corruption and we don't want discrimination, but a certain tolerance is desirable. I hope I'm not getting shot in the back by anyone in the rest of the room. I can see it's going over fairly well with you folks.
I think we do have to establish, within political Parties, procedures that minimize that kind of behaviour. The obvious one to me is the candidate selection process. I've been involved with that and it's an interesting process, but I don't think it really goes very far. You've all gone through it, I assume, and so you will know whether it goes far enough or not.
I think, in relation to the last conversation you had, maybe the Party Whip is the person who should really be whipping the members of the Legislature into more seemly behaviour in the House. Incidentally, just a little historical note, Charles Dickens visited the Nova Scotia Legislature - probably some of you have read that - and his description of the behaviour in the House is absolutely lurid. You haven't seen anything like that. Although when I first came and started teaching at Dal, some of my students did report on behaviour that wasn't much better and I think the difference, of course, has been that television has been introduced and women have been in the House, and it makes a difference. I think there has been improvement and it's not for me really to judge exactly how much.
I think we have to take much more seriously, in the Legislatures and in government, the bureaucracies that apply the policies and programs that legislators produce, we have to take much more seriously the rules and the institutions that are being created to enforce transparency and to establish ethical standards. If you listen to what's been going on in the United States and the big foofaraw a year ago over the ethics, and then you hear that not very much has changed in the final analysis, things have to change both in Washington and in Halifax.
[Page 31]
I'm very interested in lobby registration, for example. We set up a lobbyist registration program here in Nova Scotia, well, that's fine, but we have one or two people running it. I happen to know one of those people and I think she's a very competent person, but it's not her fault if you can't go to it and find it's all updated and people are complying with the rules. We have to insist in the Legislature that those institutions be respected and the rules be respected.
I think we have to decentralize a lot more of public administration. We've been having a very interesting discussion in our local library about public consultation and public participation. One of the people who has been involved in that was emphasizing the denial of local involvement as a result of the way in which provincial governments manage their creatures - the municipalities - and we've seen a very unfortunate example of that in the last few days.
We need to give more local control, and how do you merge that with the fact that we have to have standards? You can't have Bridgewater South Shore Regional Hospital applying totally different standards of health care to say, the Kentville hospital, you have to have a standard. Perhaps within that framework you can establish a framework which sets standards, then gives the specific authority the cash it needs to carry those standards to a successful achievement. Maybe that's managing by objectives, I don't know, but it's a way of perhaps avoiding this nitpicking oversight from over-large bureaucracies in the centre.
I think we have to examine the fabric of civic life to encourage participation. We can do that by recognizing the value of activism and advocacy. I find it really quite interesting - I pick up the Progress Enterprise and Bridgewater Bulletin, and about every week there's an accolade for someone who is a volunteer caregiver. That's fine, I think they deserve a great deal of respect and accolade. You very seldom see anyone applauded for being an activist. An activist is a pejorative word in a lot of people's lexicons, it's very unfortunate. Advocating is not really what a good citizen is supposed to do, despite what the civics texts tell us.
[9:00 p.m.]
I think we have to give real meaning to public consultation, I've already mentioned that, and we have to respect and, if necessary, provide support for citizens who challenge the stakeholders and government agencies. I think of the people who put so much effort into the Digby quarry case. I believe they are still trying to pay off a debt of $10,000, or maybe I'm thinking of the people who were fighting that Lafarge cement thing. They went out on a limb and put their own money out and there's very little help available to those kinds of groups. It's a tricky problem because you don't want to create a situation where everyone who has a grudge is going to make a big issue of something, but at the same time we as the public have a responsibility to help people to articulate what exactly it is that is wrong about a situation.
[Page 32]
Finally, we get to our political Parties. It's really interesting working within political Parties to push a little bit of policy. Our Party, the NDP, is a relative newcomer to really being involved in policy formation. When I first became involved - well, I wasn't really involved, Alexa asked me and a number of other academics to give some advice on ethics and lobby registration. So I trotted off home and I pounded out a draft Act on lobby registration. I had been seeing this process at the federal level and, sure enough, at that time it was welcomed. More recently it's been quite difficult to present issues to the Party and that is because we now have a Party bureaucracy and there's this problem all the time of professionals - I've seen it also in the public interest groups - the professionals versus the volunteers.
We have to find a way of using the resources, the really big resources that are there because you've got volunteers, and merging that intelligence, that energy, with the intelligence, energy and commitment of the people who are formally working for the Party. It's not easy, I know, I've seen many situations where both sides bristle, but it should really be addressed. I think if you can do that, it gets people more involved in the Party system.
I may be a little out of whack here because I'm an NDP'er and everyone knows that people in the NDP tend to be policy wonks, you know, and a little bizarre when it comes to wanting to talk about policy, but I suggest it to you.
Then we need, finally, to reform our electoral system. I, too, like many people, feel that proportional representation would do a better job of representing us.
Now, I just want to conclude by pointing out, as I do in here, that I'm not talking about something that you can go back to the Legislature and bring in a nice piece of legislation and everything will be different the next time you go to the polls. That's not going to happen. It may not happen in your lifetimes or my lifetime, but if we can do the right groundwork and set up a culture in which there's consultation and trust and real understanding of what's going on in the political world, then perhaps we can do a lot better when we come to the elections.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Professor Pross, for your presentation, and certainly your many years of experience in the field of democratic and civic involvement in our electoral system. Ms. MacDonald.
MS. MAUREEN MACDONALD: Thank you very much for your presentation, Paul. I am quite interested in your explanation, or Professor Milner's explanation, around proportional representation, why it generates a higher turnout, if you could help us with that.
MR. PROSS: I'm not sure I can give you the full range of his reasoning, but I think the basic reason is a degree of common sense in modern civic life, because of complexity of life, when we do get involved in civic affairs, we tend to specialize and we tend to, you know
[Page 33]
- you might be an environmentalist or you might be someone who wants tax reform. You tend to look for - in a proportional representation system, you can actually have a Party, which can actually get into power, that speaks primarily to the kind of issue that you're most interested in. So I think that could be one of the key factors.
The differences he talks about are about 10 per cent. So they say we had about - well, in this constituency I calculated we got a probable turnout of 59 per cent in the recent election, but maybe in the PR we would have 69 per cent. So it's not going to totally - it's not going to bring everybody into the electoral process, but it would bring a number more.
MS. MAUREEN MACDONALD: I have one other question. People have talked to us over the course of our meetings about the lack of time that families and people have to be involved in volunteer organizations and community groups, the civic activities that you talk about, as well as in politics. Now, this is an impediment then to developing, or addressing, building that civic knowledge and that civic engagement that you talk about, I would think.
The other thing that I wonder about is the pop culture, the incredible array of choices that people have in terms of their leisure time, when they do have leisure time, to engage in pop culture, especially young people - but not just young people, all of us, we all own a television, you know, whatever. I'm wondering if there are studies or research on the context of the pop culture in which we're trying to engage people and the impact that that has. I don't know if you know of any or not, but it's a question that I have. How do we engage people, how do we offset this incredible overwhelming availability of music, Internet, games, all of these things that people in their leisure time prefer to do than civic engagement in politics?
MR. PROSS: I'm not familiar with any studies right off. It seems to me in looking at interest groups that very often a person becomes involved in an interest group which has a policy orientation because they find that an aspect of their recreational involvement has been affected by politics. Take the ATV people, you all know about the huge and intense political involvement of people on both sides, but we'll talk about the ATV people. Well I'm sure those people were not very politically active before the uproar of the last year and a half. There's a good example. On the other side of that spectrum take canoeists, you know, the canoeists are not necessarily that interested in politics, but they see the wilderness disappearing and they join the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.
So that's one way in which these things happen. They come out of our recreational activities very frequently and it grows on you. I don't think we should be too discouraged because at 17 or 18 people are more interested in, you know, the kind of culture that sends most of us bananas by the time we're 60, but anyway.
Your reference to time enables me - I was thinking about this earlier today and, you know, a good quip would be if we can get more time, more involvement in these sorts of groups, if we ended Sunday shopping and if we insisted on a 40-hour work week instead of
[Page 34]
putting people through more than one job in order to get a pittance in each, and that's part of the problem. We look back at the 1940s and 1950s when there was a lot - may have been, I'm not sure that there was, but there may have been a lot more civic engagement but those were years when there was one wage earner in most families, and now in families where there are two wage earners, they're both working and they don't have the time and, of course, there are many, many families where there's only one wage earner and one parent, and they just don't have the time. So it's extremely difficult.
Short of draconian legislation, I don't see how we can move away from that. We see it in the volunteer sector, you know, people like myself and Dick Crawford are in several organizations together and we see the difficulty of recruiting new people to those organizations.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Pross, for your presentation this evening.
MR. PROSS: You're welcome.
MR. CHAIRMAN: We have another presenter, Mr. Ken Edwards.
Mr. Edwards, if you can just state your full name and your address for us.
MR. KEN EDWARDS: Ken Edwards from Bridgewater. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members. I haven't really heard one bad presentation this evening. It's great and I thank you people for listening to us.
I think I've been going to the Legislature since 1969. I was one of the founding members of the Denturist Society of Nova Scotia, and I just want to tell a little story. I was in the House one day and there was a lady there from Quebec - her husband has a business in Halifax - and she couldn't believe it. It was the first time she was ever in a House, and she couldn't believe that someone was standing up speaking and people were sitting back reading the paper, drinking coffee, and the calls that were coming out across the floor of the Legislature and all this type of thing. I tried to explain to her that, as this gentleman here tonight has said, some of that is "regular" I guess, for lack of a better term. I understand it because I've been there too long.
Having said that, one of the suggestions, or pretty near everyone this evening has made the suggestion that we have to go to the schools and educate our students. That's a must that you have to take back.
I've had my own practice in the town since 1972 and I couldn't even begin to keep track of the people who come into my office and do not know the three levels of government, one from the other. This should not be happening, and hopefully in the future it won't be
[Page 35]
happening because we have to get to our kids. I've gone to schools, on debates, and the kids have been great. They've been like sponges; they come and talk to you afterwards; they're there and they want to learn. Let's get it back where it should be to start with. It's very, very important.
I'll tell you another thing. Within the 30 age group, the big story I hear on the street is that all politicians are the same. They're all the same; they've all got the same story; that's it, they'll tell you anything to get elected and after that, forget it - they're all the same. Well, that's quite an argument to try to convince otherwise - it really is.
I've gone back to the days in the House when there weren't any microphones. I think probably the only way we had of getting it out was a politician got the word out himself or it was on, you know, TV was in the 1950s I guess, whatever, and the newspaper. You didn't have cameras in the House. When I hear the statement made day after day after day that we watched this on TV - unfortunately good news doesn't make good news, bad news makes good news - and all this yakking back and forth in the House, that's what is perceived to be what goes on all the time in the House, and I say well it can't be because there are some things that get done in there that are worthwhile.
[9:15 p.m.]
So this is the perception, I think, what I'm hearing on the street. These people, 30, 35 years old, that are not going to the polls - because they do look at me and I'm very much involved in politics in Lunenburg West and I just love it because I understand it and you meet so many nice people and the whole thing - we have to get that perception away, we have to educate our public. I learned the three levels of government when I was in Grade 5 in a one-room schoolhouse - I know I don't look that old, but I am. (Laughter) Anyway, we have to educate our kids and we have to somehow - I don't know how and I shouldn't be talking, as they always say if you haven't got the answers, whatever - but we have to get these 25, 30, 35, 40 year olds who are not voting, and we are not going to do it when they turn their TV on and see a bunch of adults "acting like school children" - not going to happen. Let's not kid ourselves, it's not going to happen.
Just another little, quick story. In the last federal election I talked to a lady - she's not in the room tonight, so I'll assume she's around 50 - she said she had never voted, ever. Well, I said, how would you like to? I don't know, she said, I've never ever bothered. So I found out where she lived, found out what time she was off work, and election day at 5:15 p.m. I was in her driveway - and she was so close to the poll, I said come with me and I walked across her lawn, across a parking lot, into the polling booth. This was the first time in her life she ever voted. She said that was great, when's the next one?
[Page 36]
Very simple. Because I educated that woman - I went to her place of business and I educated her for three days on end. Every time I had dinner where she worked, I talked to her about it. But there's a lady who is educated - bang, she went and voted. Don't care how, just as long as you go.
So, without rambling on, we have to educate our kids. Get it back in the schools, number one rule. And the other thing, like I said, before cameras - I'm sure that the public perception of politicians is not like it is today because that, excuse me, camera in the House, I think has done more damage for politicians and our system than anyone or anything could ever do.
Too late to take them out, because then you're going to be hiding something - it's gone too far the other way, so we have to clean up our act. Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Edwards.
I'd like this opportunity to thank all of our presenters again for coming this evening. I am pleased to tell you that this has been, I think it's safe to say, our most successful public presentation that we've had to date, so I certainly want to thank all of you for coming out - the weather hasn't been that favourable today - for spending the last two hours with us and sharing your thoughts and your experiences.
I would remind you again there is a sign-up sheet in the back if you wish to receive a copy of the transcript from today's meeting. As well, if you wish to receive a personal copy of our final report, which will be tabled in the House of Assembly within the next number of weeks - or possibly it could be a bit longer than that, depending on how much more work has to be done. But we certainly received wonderful suggestions, and very creative and constructive suggestions as well that we'll be reviewing.
As I mentioned earlier, tomorrow we will continue in Kentville with our new focus group at eleven o'clock at the NSCC Kingstec Campus. Our adult focus group is at 3:15 p.m. at the Wandlyn Inn in Kentville, and our public meeting will be at 7:00 p.m. at the Wandlyn Inn - hopefully we'll have just as much participation as we've had here this evening.
So again, thank you to all of our members who are here and certainly to our support staff who are assisting us, and for all of you for coming out. Thank you.
[The committee adjourned at 9:19 p.m.]
