PROC Committee Report

Supplementary opinion of the New Democratic Party of Canada

The threat to the public interest of holding an election during the pandemic is at least twofold. On the one hand, door-to-door canvassing, rallies and large numbers of people congregating in polling stations to vote can create opportunities for virus transmission and threaten public health.

On the other hand, a pandemic election also has the potential to undermine the health of our democracy. The administrative and logistical challenges of a pandemic election may present barriers that make it unreasonably difficult or impossible to vote for those who want to. These same challenges, coupled with Canadians’ own perceptions of the election process and the risk it presents to their personal health, may cause some voters not to want to vote at all. 

Beyond these threats to voter participation, a pandemic also has the potential to undermine our democracy by calling into question the legitimacy of the election. As the recent example in Newfoundland and Labrador shows, an outbreak late during the election can cause delays, confusion and unforeseen barriers to voting, which in turn may cause some people to feel that the election does not properly reflect the will of the voting public.

Elections Canada has made it clear to the committee that it has the ability to delay elections on a riding-by-riding basis and cannot rule out the possibility of having to exercise that power during a pandemic election. In an election where the right to govern may hang on only a handful of seats, the exercise of this unilateral power may determine who is invited to form a government following an election where several seats, or more, remain vacant.

This raises the specter of a government whose political legitimacy is openly challenged. The next federal election in Canada will very likely determine who holds the reigns during the critical early period of the country’s pandemic recovery. The last thing the country needs is a political crisis layered over the concurrent public health and economic crises we are already facing. The events in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021 show the very real risks to democracy that this kind of crisis can pose.

For these reasons, the NDP wholeheartedly endorses the committee’s recommendation that the government should commit to not calling an election during the pandemic, unless the House of Commons itself decides it no longer has confidence in the government by defeating the government on a motion of non-confidence.

We recognize that this requires parliamentarians to work hard to find acceptable and appropriate compromises. It requires a government that recognizes it does not have a majority, that it must compromise to make progress and that opposition members have an important and legitimate job to do in holding the government to account. It requires opposition parties to not only criticize, but provide constructive proposals for moving forward, and to avoid some of the more extreme forms of hyperbole that often come with politics.

While New Democrats are committed to doing our part to make this parliament work, we recognize that many of the variables in that equation are beyond our control. We must be prepared for the possibility of an election during the pandemic.

To that end, we support the recommendations of the committee and reiterate our commitment to the recommendations in our supplement to the committee’s interim report that were not taken up by the committee in its final report.