Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise and put my oar in the water on a matter that goes to the heart of why I and many other people are here. That is the democratic right of Canadians to participate in elections and debate without fear of intimidation or fear of receiving misinformation or otherwise being subject to the kinds of fraudulent actions that are being considered in this most recent case involving the Conservative party in a number of ridings across the country.
I want to commend my colleagues, including the member for Hamilton Centre for moving this important motion and the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent for seconding it. It is a critically important motion because of what we have seen happening with our democracy in the country over the past number of years.
I listened to an earlier speaker talk about the days of nylons and rum. He went back to roasting pigs and barrels of rum. It is not a very pretty sight when we talk about that. The province I come from has its own history of how elections were conducted, but we have come some considerable distance, I would say, or at least that is what we want to tell the world. We have come a considerable distance in our country at living up to the democratic ideals and principles that we love to discuss with other countries around the world. We often see the Prime Minister and members on the other side when they are in other lands almost shaking their fingers at other countries, suggesting that they should be as democratic as we are, that they should adhere to the kinds of principles and moral standards with which politics is conducted in our country. Then we come up against the kind of situation we are facing now.
Why is the motion before the House at this time? Within the last few months the Chief Electoral Officer appeared before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs and made a series of recommendations. He asked for, among other things, the power to require political parties to supply every document or piece of information deemed necessary to verify compliance with the requirements of the act with respect to the election.
Those recommendations came to a vote in the committee. The New Democratic Party voted in favour of those recommendations. The Liberal party, the third party, also voted in favour of those recommendations. Lo and behold, the government, which has a majority on the committee, refused to allow the committee to strengthen the Chief Electoral Officer's power of investigation and ability to proceed in this manner.
That is why we are here today, because we want to get to the bottom of this and give Elections Canada the authority to quickly get to the bottom of any similar cases of electoral fraud in the future and, hence, prevent their recurrence.
I would like to take a few moments to talk a bit about what we can do now, or maybe what we need to do about things that have happened just recently.
I will tell the House why this is so important to me. I first ran for office back in 1991. I was successful, thanks to the good people of Halifax Atlantic. I have been in this business for 13 years.
The key factors which motivated me throughout my time of getting into and continuing in politics, as well as now getting in at the federal level, were the desire to do everything I could to make our political system and our democracy more effective, as well as ensure that voters and citizens felt that it was worth their while to participate. By that, I do not only mean they should only vote, but they should feel somewhat compelled to participate in debates and raise concerns with members of government or their elected officials. On many occasions, when speaking in high schools to young people, when speaking to Canadians of all ages and certainly when speaking to those in Dartmouth—Cole Harbour where I have had the most opportunity, I have even suggested that I feel it is somewhat part of our responsibility as citizens to actively participate in the political process.
Right now upward of 40% of the population are eligible to vote but do not. Between 75% and 80% of young people between the ages of 18 and 33 do not participate in the political process. They do not vote, nor do they become engaged. That is crazy and it is wrong. Why are they not participating?
I have asked the young people in Dartmouth—Cole Harbour what we can do to give them a better sense that it makes a difference for them to participate. They have talked about the fact that their politicians need to engage with them, that they need to solicit their opinions, that they need to take their comments seriously and help them see some of their wishes and dreams reflected in government policy and debate. They want to know that they matter. As well, when a political party or politician runs for election and makes certain commitments, they want to see those commitments fulfilled in an honourable and respectful manner if they are elected. They do not want them to just respond to the people who actually cast ballots for them, but represent the principles of our democracy and all of the people for whom they have been elected to represent. When people come to my office in Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, I do not check to see if they can prove they voted for me before my staff and I will try to help them or intervene on their behalf.
It is somewhat troubling the way the government perceives that it should not act on the basis of the 39.6% of the population that voted for the Conservatives. In our parliamentary democracy, the majority wins. In this case, they have the majority of the seats in the House. That does not mean they represent the majority of Canadians. It means they were elected by not quite 40% of the population. There is 60% of the population that did not sign onto whatever their campaign booklet called for that time.
Canadians who voted for me also have important things to say. They also have good ideas. There are things that think need to be done for our country and our communities. They expect the government to pay attention. Just because a citizen did not vote Conservative does not mean that individual is less of a Canadian. This is part of the issue the opposition has had with the government. The Conservatives always stand and say that a majority of Canadians voted for them, so therefore they can do whatever they want. That is wrong. Less than a majority of Canadians voted for the Conservative government. That kind of stuff turns voters off.
That is why I and my colleagues on the official opposition benches received over four and a half million votes in the last election. That is why we are so determined to do everything we can to try to restore some sense of accountability, decorum and responsibility to the political process.
We have heard from the government on the recent issue of people getting misleading calls, about being misdirected, about getting illegal calls. The calls were illegal because the callers indicated they represented Elections Canada when in fact they did not. The government says that it is doing everything it can to assist Elections Canada. It has been trying to turn the problem around to the opposition, saying that we should be as helpful.
Canadians understand this. Why do we not believe the Conservatives when they say that they have done everything right, that they are assisting in every way, shape and form? We only have to go back a couple of days to when the government finally admitted it was wrong with respect to the in and out scam. It pleaded guilty and paid upward of a quarter of a million dollars in fines as a result.
What is the in and out issue? The in and out issue started after the 2006 election. It took Elections Canada about five years to finally get to the point where the Conservative government admitted that it did something wrong and paid the fines accordingly.
The investigation took far too long. It took five years and cost taxpayers almost $2 million because the Conservative Party of Canada did what it is doing right now. Members stood in their places and said day after day that they did not do anything, that somebody took on a vendetta, that somebody was trying to smear them, somebody was providing inaccurate information. They pleaded their innocence. They took Elections Canada to court and spent millions of dollars defending themselves to no avail. They finally recognized they were done like dinner and admitted their guilt and paid the fine.
