Procedure and House Affairs Committee on March 4th, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Mr. Preston.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Could we reread the motion? There was obviously some lack of understanding in the room about what we are now debating.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I'll have the clerk reread the motion that we're on, including the amendment. Is that what you'd like?

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Yes, it was the amended piece that I really wanted read in.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

The whole thing, then.

The amendment we're now debating will be read by the clerk.

[The Clerk]

The motion as amended would read:

That the Committee proceed to the consideration of Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (visual identification of voters), and that the above mentioned study commence at the meeting of the Committee immediately following the Committee's completion of its investigation of the actions of the Conservative Party of Canada during the 2006 election, in relation to which Elections Canada has refused to reimburse Conservative candidates for illegitimate election campaign expenses and the tabling in the House of the Committee's report.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

That was perfect, but I think it made my point without me having to read it. I was saying that we came here today to talk about Bill C-6, a piece of legislation, and that we were sidetracked, hijacked, whatever way you want to put it, into saying, “Let's put something ahead of it first.”

I was interrupted and told I was taking theatrical licence or literary licence with it, and I think it clearly states it exactly there, that this is what is being attempted, a hijack of a perfectly good motion to talk about legislation at this committee, take it back off track and talk about something else.

Through the goodness of her heart, Madam Jennings has left in there that we could talk about our motion after the fact. My mama taught me to say thank you, so thank you for leaving that part in there. But what you really did was hijack where we originally were to talk about something that you wanted to talk about.

Answering the point of order, Chair, my point has been well made. I may have been deemed descriptive of it. I may have been adding some of my own words as to somebody yelling out, “No, let's talk about this.” Perhaps the word “no” was not used. However, I think the answer was that it's exactly what happened. We changed a motion to deal with legislation at this committee. All the people at this table answered the call when the orders of the day went out. That's what they were coming here to do. That's what it said. Instead of dealing with that in that fashion, they chose to change it and deal with the amended part.

I won't ask for it to be reread, because it states very clearly that it's about dealing with the in-and-out scheme of some election financing piece from 2006, and when that's all done, it's okay, the people of Canada then will get to deal with legislation that's needed in this country. It's about dealing with the partisan mudslinging first. It's about having to finish that first, and if that's okay, then we'll get to the other.

When and if that happened, what's to stop another amendment or another motion from coming forward, rather than dealing with legislation? I can only assume, since it's been happening at a regular rate and a regular pace, that this would not be the end. There would then be something else that was more important to this committee than legislation. A member of the opposition side would then come forward and go, “Aha!”

They're thinking of it now, Chair. They're coming up with ideas that we could deal with instead of dealing with any pieces of legislation. I think it's unfair to the citizens of this country to think that the opposition members of this committee clearly don't want to deal with the legislation.

I never thought of it this way, but perhaps their full intent is to do exactly that. I've always believe in the goodness in the hearts of men and women, that they truly are here for noble purposes, but perhaps that is the true reason. They actually are here to not do legislation, to not move the good work of Canada forward, to not move legislation that will help make this country a better place going forward. They're actually here to talk about their own issues, not about the issues of the country.

I hope that's not true. I'm not hearing anybody say it's not true over there, but I still believe in the goodness that—

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

The only one filibustering is you. The only people I've heard filibustering since I got here in January are the Conservatives.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Order.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

I thought it was a real question he was asking, not a rhetorical one. I apologize.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I know you just got here, so that's understandable.

Mr. Preston.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Not to worry, Madam Jennings, I'll be happy to answer on the record what you just asked.

You know, each of those motions we have debated, each of those motions that have been brought forward has been about bringing legislation forward. I ask, through you, Chair, to the person who just asked me the question—I'm sure it wasn't rhetorical. The answer was, and has been all along, in each case we've put forward a motion to please, please, get back to legislation, to quit talking about a simple partisan piece. We have even tried, in our own good way, to modify even that motion, which we don't believe we should be talking about, to an open and honest and transparent motion that would include all of us. If we're going to go down that road...and you know what? After we have dealt with Bill C-6, if we have to get there, great, fantastic, let's get there, but let's get there in a non-partisan, open, transparent way where we look at the books of all the parties.

Chair, through you, that's what we've been doing here, and I'm sorry if we have interrupted the partisan path they want to take. I apologize. That's not what we've been trying to do. It's not about them. It's about the legislation before us. We came here today, as I said, in a perfectly good compromise situation with a motion to deal with the legislation before this committee and asked very early in this meeting—hours ago, it seems—to vote on it. Let's talk about that piece of legislation.

As I said, Chair, through the quirks of a 106(4), it wasn't really even to talk about the legislation, it was to talk about talking about the legislation. It was to talk about setting a budget, calling a witness list, and doing the things that are needed to bring Bill C-6 before this committee.

The hoops we have...a guy my size, if you can imagine, jumping through hoops, but the hoops we have to jump through to get to where we want to deal with legislation at this committee...it's becoming infamous. It's just crazy. We're having to deal with this in the minutiae of bringing this legislation forward when the opposite side wants to stop every time we get to the edge, near to the point where we might actually deal with the legislation again, where it just might happen that we actually start doing the work of the people of this country. We amend a motion. We move another motion. We bring another 106(4). Something else is going to happen.

Chair, we've got meetings twice a week with this committee, and what do we ask? What's next? What's happening at the next meeting? I know what I'd like to do. I'd like to sit here and look down at those chairs and see the Chief Electoral Officer and perhaps some representatives from some of the...maybe even the Muslim communities, because that would be good, and some of the people who have written us letters about what would work and what wouldn't work in changing Bill C-6, and some of the people who have to do with election laws in this country. I'd like to ask them questions about how we can move this piece of legislation forward, ask Mr. Mayrand sitting right there in that chair—and probably Ms. Davidson would be with him because she usually is—what trouble they are having with voter ID, what trouble they are having with this piece of legislation. Why can't we move it forward?

I would suspect—I know the members opposite ask fantastic questions when we do this too. Usually, they do a great job in talking to witnesses, and in very, very short order we could write that piece of legislation. We could get to a clause-by-clause situation on Bill C-6 and have a real, true finish to Bill C-6, a piece that, as Mr. Dewar mentioned earlier today, Chair, for you started as Bill C-31, started as another piece of legislation. We could truly get to that point—when we actually are working, getting questions asked and answered as to what the difference is. I don't think we're far, Chair. In reviewing some of the pieces on Bill C-6, I don't think we're but one or two questions away from Mr. Mayrand's answers, what he would like to see different in Bill C-6 to what we have. I don't think we're far, and you know what, the government side doesn't tend to get to go first in most of that questioning, so it might even be found through a question of the opposition, should they be in their chairs during that questioning, Chair. We might get to the answer very early in the first meeting we could have on Bill C-6.

Now, there are other witnesses, and I know they must have put some thought into it, because it was on the orders of the day today that we would also talk about the budget and the witness list for Bill C-6. So I know they must have thought about it, or at least had their staff thinking about who we could get, who else we need to see to complete the act concerning visual identification of voters. Who else do we need to see, Chair?

I'd much rather be sitting here having a good friendly debate and a laugh or two with Mr. Proulx or Mr. Guimond about that, about who we should have. That's what this committee used to do. We honestly used to sit here and talk about what we were going to do next and get to the point of getting the witnesses here with a little good cajoling and “Here's my witness list and here's yours”, and we'd actually come up, at the end of the day—

[Pierre Lemieux, Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, CPC]

Find common ground.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Right, the middle ground. My friend Mr. Lemieux said it just right. We'd find the middle ground. You know, we've lost the middle ground. We keep going in this tug of war from one side to the other, from one side to the other.

But each time, Chair—I ask you again and I'll try and make it clear—my friends here on this side of the table continuously try to bring it back to legislation. I think if you check the blues of the committee and all of the tapes, we've asked every time if we could just get back to legislation. Could we just get back to what we do?

As I said, we've got three parties on that side that for some reason don't feel we want to move forward in this debate and instead want to talk about their election financing in-and-out scheme, mud-slinging exercise. That's where they want to go with this.

And we've even offered to compromise on that. As I've stated, we offered the give-and-take. I guess we give, they take. But we keep asking if we could please just talk about it all. I grow tired.

Sometimes my kids do this to me too. If you ask dad for something 33 times, on the 34th time he might give in. It's kind of happening on the other side.

We keep wanting to talk about the in-and-out, but we keep saying, “Well, let's just talk about everybody. Let's just throw the books open and see if there is something in the election laws that we would like to see changed.” As I've pointed out today, and I've read into the record even, there is nothing in the law that says that what's going on isn't appropriate. We're saying that everybody is doing it.

So if truly we need to throw open the books, if truly we need to change the election laws, we'll need to throw open all the books to see that you guys are doing that and that's happening here, a similar thing happened over here and that ad buy went that way—is there consensus around the table that we want to change that? Is it not something we want to have happen in the next election? Okay, we'll write that legislation. We have great researchers and great legislative writers in this room. They do a fantastic job.

If the will of this committee is to change something in the Elections Act, let's get at it. Let's do that.

[An hon. member]

Get her done.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

But it's not about a partisan search—

[An hon. member]

A witch hunt.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Well, I don't like to use “witch hunt” too much because I did once before and the chair kept track of how many times I said it.

[An hon. member]

You don't like to be repetitive.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

I think I'm only up to about two or three times today, Chair, on “witch hunt”. Three times? That was me asking about “witch hunt”; that wasn't me saying it, so that wasn't a fourth time.

Oh, Chair, you can't count it because—

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I think that's five.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Oh, well anyway, it can't be that way.

Even if that's the work we're going to do on this committee after we're done with Bill C-6, even if that's where we head.... Although I know Mr. Reid read a list last week of other work we could do, which is appropriate for this committee to actually work on, we're not there yet, and maybe this would have to follow it even, because I would rather see us do the work of the ethics reporting and some of the other stuff this committee has already been working on.

But, Chair, if we got there, we still would have to get there in a fair fashion, in an open fashion, where all books were open, where we really did talk about it all. Even if we did investigate just the Conservative Party piece, I'm not sure how we're going to get the change in the laws, because we would have to see what was happening in other parties and what other people had been doing. If one is doing it one way and another is doing it differently, I'm okay with it, but when we're all doing it the same way, how could we possibly get to changing a piece of legislation when we've only looked at one angle of it?

I don't think that's truly how it would work. We have to look at it in a much more open fashion, Chair. We have to get to the point where we actually deal with the piece of legislation before us, and then perhaps the other pieces of work this committee has, be it private members' business or ethics committee business, or other stuff that will have to happen.

Then if we truly want to ask him about this election financing, we can have Mr. Mayrand here. I think I have a pretty good idea of what Mr. Mayrand will say.

[An hon. member]

What will he say?

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

He'll say, “I'm sorry, Mr. Preston, but that's before the courts and I'm not certain we should discuss that until it's done. I'm sure your chair would have made that ruling, because he's very good.”

I would think that's what he might say. I don't like putting words in his mouth. I'm sure Mr. Mayrand is watching, and if he would like to correct me, he could.

[An hon. member]

It's a reasonable assumption.