Appendix A: Methodology

Number, Location and Composition of Interviews

The research consisted of 44 individual interviews 25 to 50 minutes in length conducted between October 13 and November 29, 2021. Of the 44 interviews, 30 were with voters living outside of Quebec in French OLMCs, including eight participants who were completely satisfied with the official language in which they were served in the 44th federal general election and 22 participants who were less than completely satisfied with the language in which they were served. Fourteen interviews were conducted with voters living in English OLMCs in Quebec, including six interviews with voters who were completely satisfied with the language in which they were served and eight with voters who were less than completely satisfied with the language in which they were served.

Thirty-nine of the interviews were conducted on the itracks Telephone IDI platform and five interviews were conducted on Zoom.

The target was to complete 40 interviews. The following were the quotas set based on recruiting 50 participants to yield the target of 40 completed interviews. The over-recruiting relative to the target sample was to compensate for any no-shows.

Participants less than completely satisfied with the official language in which they were served

Because of the very low incidence of less than completely satisfied OLMC electors, there were largely no quotas on composition.

• French OLMCs: At least three from any of B.C., the Prairies, N.B., N.S. or N.L.
• English OLMCs: No quotas

Participants completely satisfied with the official language in which they were served

Because of the higher incidence, some quotas were set, although these were limited because some flexibility was still needed.

French OLMCs—satisfied:

• Gender:
  • Men: At least three
  • Women: At least three
• Age:
  • 18–34: At least two
  • 35–54: At least two
  • 55+: At least two
• Community size (participant self-classification based on a screening question):
  • Large city/suburb: At least two
  • Small city/town: At least two
  • Rural: At least one
• Region:
  • Atlantic: At least one
  • Ontario: At least one
  • Prairies: At least one
  • B.C.: At least one

English OLMCs—satisfied

• Gender:
  • Men: At least two
  • Women: At least two
• Age:
  • 18–34: At least one
  • 35–54: At least one
  • 55+: At least one
• Community size (participant self-classification based on a screening question):
  • Large city/suburb: At least one
  • Small city/town: At least one
  • Rural: At least one

The following summarizes the number of participants along several dimensions:

Importance of Being Served in Preferred Language (Among Those Who Have a Preferred Language)

• French OLMCs who prefer to be served in French (28 out of 30)

  Base: FOLMCs who prefer to be served in French	Total	French OLMCs
  		Completely satisfied	Less than completely satisfied
  Total participants	28	7	21
  Importance
  Very important	19	5	14
  Somewhat important	7	2	5
  Not that/Not at all important	2	0	2

• English OLMCs who prefer to be served in English (13 out of 14)

  Base: EOLMCs who prefer to be served in English	Total	English OLMCs
  		Completely satisfied	Less than completely satisfied
  Total participants	13	6	7
  Importance
  Very important	5	2	3
  Somewhat important	7	3	4
  Not that/Not at all important	1	1	0

Qualified Participants

Qualified participants for the interviews met the following qualifications:

• Is a Canadian resident, 18 years of age or older.
• Voted in the 44th federal general election in person, either at an advance poll, on election day or at a local Elections Canada office.
• Speaks the language of the OLMC well enough to have or conduct a conversation. Those in French OLMCs had to select French or both French and English and those in English OLMCs had to select English or both English and French.
• When registering or voting, preferred official language for conversations with Elections Canada officials at the poll: Those in French OLMCs had to select French or both French and English, and those in English OLMCs had to select English or both English and French.
• Were either completely satisfied or less than completely satisfied with the official language in which they were served. Note: quota targets by OLMC were set for this qualification.

The following occupation exclusions applied:

• Neither the participant nor anyone in their immediate household worked for Elections Canada or any other government department or agency involved in elections at any level of government.
• Neither the participant nor anyone in their immediate household worked for a radio or television station, newspaper or magazine, or online media outlet.
• The participant did not work at the polls in either the 44th federal general election or in the previous federal general election that took place in 2019.

NOTE: Because of the low incidence of qualified participants, especially those who were less than completely satisfied with the official language in which they were served, no other standard occupation exclusions or past participation exclusions were applied.

Study Procedure

Recruiting Process and Sample Source

Three firms were involved in recruiting for the study: Advanis, INOWE Canada Marketing and Synchro Marketing Research Ltd.

• Advanis: Advanis purchased sample from Lucid, a firm that aggregates samples from various panels. The sample provided by Lucid included information on preferred language, gender, age and region. The recruiting process from this sample was as follows:
  
  Step 1: Lucid sent invitations to a sample of OLMC panelists to complete a brief online survey, where in this context OLMC means:
  • French OLMC: The panelist lives outside Quebec and their preferred language for dealing with the panel is French.
  • English OLMC: The panelist lives in Quebec, and their preferred language for dealing with the panel is English.
  The invitation contained a link to an online recruiting questionnaire hosted on Advanis servers in Canada.

  Step 2: The person completed an online survey questionnaire to determine their eligibility and to set up a time and date for the interview if they chose to participate in an interview.
  
  Step 3: Advanis sent an email confirming the date and time and any information required for participating in the interview.
  
  Step 4: The day before the interview, Advanis made a telephone reminder call.
  
  This process yielded 20 recruits, of whom 15 participants showed up for an interview.
  
  Elections Canada and Sage Research identified 21 Facebook pages relevant to French OLMCs. Advanis attempted to place a recruitment ad on 15 of the Facebook pages, and eight allowed Advanis to post the ad. The ad included a link to the online questionnaire on the Advanis site. The intent was to follow the same procedure as outlined in steps two to four above. However, only two people clicked on the link to the online questionnaire, and neither of these people qualified to participate in an interview.

• INOWE Canada Marketing and Synchro Marketing Research Ltd.: The sample source was INOWE's and Synchro's opt-in databases of people who have indicated an interest and willingness to be contacted for possible inclusion in a qualitative research study. The database contains information on various demographic characteristics, including preferred language for communication with the respective recruiting firm, languages spoken, age, gender, and province. The following describes the recruiting process used by INOWE and Synchro:
  
  Step 1: An email blast was sent to panelists in the respective OLMCs based on the languages spoken to determine their interest in participating in an interview on their experience voting in the 44th federal general election.
  
  Step 2: The screening questionnaire was then administered by telephone to those who responded to the email to determine their eligibility and confirm their interest in participating in the interview.
  
  Step 3: INOWE/Synchro sent an email confirming the date and time and any information required for participating in the interview
  
  Step 4: Three days before and the day before the interview, telephone reminder calls were made to participants.
  
  This process yielded 29 recruits, all of whom showed up for an interview.

Interviewing Methodology

Participants were offered three online synchronous choices for the interview: telephone, Zoom, or text chat. Thirty-nine of the interviews were conducted by telephone using the itracks Telephone IDI platform and five participants opted for a Zoom interview. None of the participants chose to do a text chat interview.

Participant Honoraria

The honorarium for all participants was $75.

Interviewers

Anita Pollak conducted the English OLMC interviews and Nadia Papineau-Couture conducted the French OLMC Interviews.

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