An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act

This bill was last introduced in the 37th Parliament, 3rd Session, which ended in May 2004.

Sponsor

Jacques Saada  Liberal

Status

This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.

Elsewhere

All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.

Message from the SenateThe Royal Assent

May 14th, 2004 / 10:05 a.m.
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The Speaker

I have the honour to inform the House that a communication has been received as follows:

Rideau Hall

Ottawa

May 13, 2004

Mr. Speaker:

I have the honour to inform you that the Honourable Adrienne Clarkson, Governor General of Canada, signified royal assent by written declaration to the bills listed in the Schedule to this letter on the 13th day of May, 2004 at 6:56 p.m.

Yours sincerely,

Barbara Uteck,

Secretary to the Governor General

The schedule indicates that royal assent was given to Bill C-24, an act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act--Chapter No. 18; Bill C-20, an act to change the names of certain electoral districts--Chapter 19; Bill C-28, an act to amend the Canada National Parks Act--Chapter 20; Bill C-15, an act to implement treaties and administrative arrangements on the international transfer of persons found guilty of criminal offences--Chapter 21; Bill C-30, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 23, 2004--Chapter 22; and Bill C-9, an act to amend the Patent Act and the Food and Drugs (The Jean Chrétien Pledge to Africa)--Chapter 23.

I also have the honour to inform the House that a communication has been received as follows:

Rideau Hall

Ottawa

May 13, 2004

Mr. Speaker,

I have the honour to inform you that the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson, Governor General of Canada, signified royal assent by written declaration to the bill listed in the Schedule to this letter on the 13th day of May, 2004 at 9:10 p.m.

Yours sincerely,

Barbara Uteck

The schedule indicates the bill assented to was Bill C-3, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act--Chapter 24.

Criminal CodeGovernment Orders

May 12th, 2004 / 4:50 p.m.
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Yukon Yukon

Liberal

Larry Bagnell LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development

Mr. Speaker, I have the distinct pleasure today of sharing a great Canadian success story. It is a story that combines justice, innovation and worldclass technology.

It is a story that highlights unique Canadian know-how and strong Canadian leadership. It is a story that affects all Canadians and reaches well beyond our borders.

This is a story about the administration of justice and the most powerful investigative tool ever discovered. It has solved hundreds of serious crimes in just the last few years and kick-started some of the most difficult criminal cases facing Canadian police. It helps protect Canadians from violent criminals and sex offenders.

This is the story of forensic DNA evidence and the ways in which it has revolutionized criminal investigation and prosecution.

More powerful than fingerprints, DNA serves as a silent but credible witness, convicting the guilty while protecting the innocent. When properly handled and properly profiled, it offers foolproof evidence.

This is a story that illustrates the power of science. It is a story of Canadian innovation that is putting science to its best use through the national DNA data bank.

DNA is the fundamental building block of our entire genetic makeup. With the exception of identical twins, every person's DNA is unique.

Using modern technology, DNA can be extracted from a small biological sample, such as a few drops of blood, the root of one hair or by swabbing the inside of the mouth. The sample is analyzed, creating a DNA profile that can be used to identify a person. That profile, in turn, can be compared to an unknown DNA profile drawn from a different biological sample. If the profiles match, the two samples come from the same person or from identical twins.

At the forefront of forensic DNA science is the nation DNA data bank, formed as a result of legislation passed by the House six years ago. The data bank is recognized worldwide for the quality of its work and the professionalism of the scientists who work there.

Since it opened in June 2000, the data bank has helped solve almost 120 murders and over 300 sexual assault cases in communities from coast to coast to coast. It has played a pivotal role in helping police solve 250 armed robberies and almost 900 break and enters. The national DNA data bank has provided critical evidence leading to convictions in more than 1,700 serious crimes.

The power of DNA evidence is so well entrenched that we now almost take it for granted. It is remarkable to realize it was only 15 years ago that DNA typing methods were introduced into criminal investigations and trials in Canada.

The first conviction directly tied to DNA evidence came in 1989 in the case of a vicious sexual assault. The so-called McNally case transformed the administration of justice in Canada and paved the way for the introduction of the data bank just over a decade later. The evidence developed by the RCMP in a lab in the McNally case, was so compelling that it convinced the accused to change his plea to guilty.

Although the RCMP started using DNA analysis successfully in 1989, there was no coordination at the national level to help police take full advantage of steady advances in the technology.

In 1996, the Department of the Solicitor General and the Department of Justice embarked on nationwide consultations with a wide range of stakeholders, including the provinces and territories, police associations, privacy advocates, legal experts and victims groups.

Confirming the Government of Canada's commitment to combat crime, and particularly violent crime, Bill C-3, the DNA Identification Act, received royal assent in December 1998, and was proclaimed in June 2000. With royal assent, the RCMP committed to build a national DNA data bank and to make it operational within 18 months. The project was completed on time and under budget.

The nationwide consultations that contributed to the creation of the data bank also stressed the need to balance a suspect's right to privacy with the need for police officers to collect evidence.

The legislation imposes strict procedures to govern the handling of DNA profiles and biological samples to ensure the privacy interests are protected. Information collected by the national DNA data bank is used for law enforcement purposes only. The bill continues all of those protections.

Some members of the House will also know that the national DNA data bank advisory committee oversees the operation and offers advice to the commissioner of the RCMP.

The data bank is one component of the national police services administered by the RCMP for the benefit of the entire Canadian law enforcement community. The data bank currently employs 26 people and operates with an annual budget of $3.1 million.

The value of DNA to police investigations is remarkable. Biological samples collected from a crime scene can link a suspect to that scene or rule out the suspect entirely. Evidence from different crime scenes can be compared to link the same perpetrator to multiple offences, whether the crimes took place locally, across the country or halfway around the world.

Canada's national DNA data bank has been recognized as one of the most advanced facilities of its kind in the world. The national DNA data bank relies heavily on robotic technology. Combined with a worldclass inventory and sample tracking system, personnel can process more samples in less time and at a significantly lower cost than other similar operations.

Moreover, the facilities in other countries require enormous cold storage containers to maintain the quality of DNA samples awaiting processing. The Canadian system uses specialized blotting paper that stabilizes the DNA and allows it to be stored at room temperature in secure cabinets.

Although there are fewer numbers of samples in the Canadian national DNA data bank compared to its counterparts internationally, our data bank has realized success much earlier than many. Compared to DNA banks, such as the Florida state wide data bank, the Canadian bank has seen more matches per sample.

The national DNA data bank consists of two primary databases. The first is a convicted offender index and includes profiles from individuals convicted of certain serious Criminal Code offences. The second is the crime scene index which houses DNA profiles generated from crime scenes.

There are currently more than 57,000 profiles entered onto the convicted offender index and more than 14,000 on the crime scene index.

An offender “hit” occurs when a biological sample from a crime scene is sent to the data bank and the resulting DNA profile matches one in the convicted offender index.

A forensic “hit” occurs when a crime scene DNA profile is sent to the crime scene index and matches a profile from at least one other crime scene.

The data bank's success is based on a simple formula. The more profiles entered into the two indices, the more hits generated to help police investigators solve serious crimes.

One such “hit” solved the vicious 1992 murder of a convenience store attendant in Sydney, Nova Scotia.

I would like to conclude my remarks by reminding the hon. members across the way, who are so enthusiastic about the bill, that the national DNA data bank serves as one of the most powerful law enforcement tools available to Canadian police and courts.

Members will recall that more than 1,700 serious crimes have been solved over the last four years as a direct result of evidence generated by data bank scientists.

Even more encouraging is the fact that, as the national DNA data bank approaches full capacity, its impact will increase even further as greater numbers of samples are processed.

Enhanced automation and robotics will help scientists process even more DNA samples in a shorter period of time. New technology will help position the data bank to better respond to various types of forensic investigation, including mass disasters.

Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders

March 31st, 2004 / 5:20 p.m.
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The Deputy Speaker

It being 5:30 p.m., pursuant to order made Tuesday, March 30, 2004, the question on the motion for the third reading stage of Bill C-3 is deemed put and carried on division.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed)

Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders

March 31st, 2004 / 5:15 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Val Meredith Canadian Alliance South Surrey—White Rock—Langley, BC

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak this one last time in the House of Commons. This will probably be my last attempt at effecting change from the government.

It is appropriate that the bill that I should be speaking to is one of democratic principles. I ran in 1988 based on the need to bring democratic principles back to the Canadian electoral system. This bill is a result of the Supreme Court of Canada acknowledging that the legislation that the government had put into place was not democratic.

This bill is addressing the decision of the Supreme Court that it was undemocratic to require a party to run 50 candidates in an election. If two people wanted to represent a party to represent a cause, an idea or an issue, that should be allowed as long as there were some other things they managed to do, and that is to show that they had some following and some people agreed with their position.

The bill that has been introduced to address the Supreme Court's decision allows one individual, if that is what it is, with 250 signatures in support and with at least 4 officers representing that party, to run in an election in order to raise the issues.

This is important because in 1987 the Reform Party talked about the need to form a party in order to raise some of the issues on democratic reform, electoral reform, economic reform and judicial reform, and to be held to a certain standard. Putting those ideas out to the population would have been very restrictive. Under the new legislative guidelines that the Liberal government tried to bring in, it is questionable whether the Reform Party of Canada would ever have gotten off the ground.

As I have said, it is very apropos that in my last speech in the House of Commons I should be defending the principles of democratic reform, in that any Canadian who seeks to put ideas before the electorate of change and moving our country forward should not be stopped by legislation in the House.

If anything, we should be opening up the process and that is what Bill C-3 does. It opens up the process so that Canadians have the freedom to express their concerns through the electoral system.

I would like to take this opportunity, as it is my last time in the House, to thank the constituents of South Surrey—White Rock—Langley for their support over the last 10 and a half years. I have been honoured to represent them. I feel I have done a good job on their behalf in the House and on behalf of the Conservative Party, the Canadian Alliance, and the Reform Party before that, in moving forward legislative changes that would give Canadians a greater voice and that would give my constituents a better life in this country.

I want to take the opportunity to thank them and to acknowledge that I could not have done it without their support. I look forward to the days ahead of me where I will continue to live and work in the community.

Perhaps I will be on the other side of the fence putting pressure on the new representative to ensure that change moves forward and that we always strive for what is best for all Canadians and for our country. We should have the courage to look ahead and take the bold steps that are required if we are ever going to deal with some of the most serious problems we have in our country, whether it is on the security issues that we spoke of earlier today or on health care.

I, and a lot of Canadians, have a great fear that 20 years from now we will not have any health care system to speak of. It is essential for the people who sit in the House to have the courage to look at how we can do things differently and in a way that will secure our health care for future generations.

We must also ensure that our country is competitive and that we raise our stature in the international community. We must think big and we must be bold in the steps that we take.

I only hope and wish that the people who replace me here and who move on in the years to come have the courage to do the right thing for all Canadians.

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to thank my constituents and to speak to this bill. I believe it is a good move by the government to recognize the democratic principles that are so important to having a free and democratic country.

Business of the HousePrivate Members' Business

March 30th, 2004 / 5:35 p.m.
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Liberal

Marcel Proulx Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC

Mr. Speaker, discussions have taken place between all parties and I believe you would find consent for the following motion. I move:

That, notwithstanding any standing order or usual practice of this House, that no later than 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 31, 2004, the motion for third reading of Bill C-3 be deemed put and adopted on division.

Food and Drugs ActPrivate Members' Business

March 30th, 2004 / 5:35 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Gary Lunn Canadian Alliance Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The hon. member asked for unanimous consent on a motion with respect to Bill C-3. I was not advised, and I had opposed that. I would be prepared to give unanimous consent now if he were so inclined to move the motion again.

Food and Drugs ActPrivate Members' Business

March 30th, 2004 / 5:30 p.m.
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Liberal

Marcel Proulx Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Discussions have taken place between all parties and I believe that you would find consent for the following order: That notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of this House, that no later than 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 31, 2004, the motion for third reading of Bill C-3 be deemed put and adopted on division.

Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders

March 26th, 2004 / 1:15 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Ken Epp Canadian Alliance Elk Island, AB

That is not only a shame, as my colleague says, it is a serious and, I would venture to say, a fatal flaw in our democratic system. If we do not fix that I am afraid our democratic system here will increasingly become eroded and members of the public will have an increasing disillusionment with the need to support, with their tax dollars and with their votes, the democratic process.

I therefore chastise the government for imposing that on its members in committee. If members had been able to debate openly and freely and to vote openly and freely, we would have had amendments that would have prevented the serious consequences that will come about as a result of the passage of Bill C-3.

I would venture to say that there must be some Liberals over there as well who must feel badly about their participation in this, as they have gone along with it. As well, now we have a so-called new Prime Minister. During his leadership campaign, the new Prime Minister often used the phrase “democratic deficit”. I do not know where he got that idea from, because all the time the party over there of which he was a part and a member of the cabinet did not really practice democracy. I suppose he detected it. He heard it from us, from this side. He probably got it from some of his own members over there. He knew that it was a hot button--it certainly is for Canadians--and he campaigned on it.

What do we see now when Bill C-3 is introduced in this Parliament? Do we see the removal of the democratic fetters that were shackled around the ankles of all the Liberals and around their hands so that they could not raise their hands to vote at a certain time but had to at a different time?

I seriously chastise this Prime Minister and the government for shutting this down.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, from time to time I have mentioned that I am an amateur mathematician. I took training at university in mathematics and physics and taught math and computing for some 31 years, so I have a bit of a mathematical thing going on here as well.

The committee has eight members from the Liberal Party. It has seven from the opposition. I am not prepared to concede that only the Liberals have a positive IQ and the rest of us have a negative one. I am not prepared to concede that only the Liberals are capable of clear thinking and the rest of us only of muddy thinking. I believe it has to be, statistically speaking, about eight to seven.

I do not know what those fractions are exactly. I could have figured it out, but in eight to seven out of fifteen times, seven times the opposition would have an idea that would be superior to the eight on the other side. We just have to wonder about it when time after time all the opposition ideas, amendments and motions are put and defeated simply because they come from this side. That is a serious flaw.

I happen also in my lifetime to have been, I like to think, a serious student of the scriptures. There is a proverb which states that in the presence of many counsellors is great wisdom. The Liberals make an error when they say, “There are all these people on the opposition side and we will not listen to them at all”. They make an error because we are part of the team that wants to build good laws for this country. They should from time to time--I would say seven out of fifteen times on average--listen to us and they should adopt those ideas.

Enough of that, because next I want to talk about one of the very serious flaws of the bill.

Perhaps before I do that, because I am a guy who likes always to accentuate the positive and diminish the negative, let me say that there is one positive thing in this bill and I sure do support it. In order not to be guilty of the same thing I am accusing the Liberals of, let me say that I wholeheartedly support the removal in this bill of the requirement in the past that if a party went down to fewer than 50 candidates in an election it was required to turn in all its assets.

Let us say that there is a new party that works hard to try to get established with some ideas that a significant number of citizens believe in. It falls short of the 50 mark. What does the government do, this high-handed government? It says that the party started out in the race with the rest of us but did not reach the first quarter mile so it will make that party go back to the start line. That is what it does.

I would like to applaud the government for having removed that. It is totally wrong for a party that has 40 candidates in an election, let us say, to have to give up all its assets. I wish to say thanks to those Liberals over there for removing that very offensive clause from the present Elections Act and for at least providing a way out of it so that this party can re-register and not have to give up everything it has worked for.

In the little time remaining, I want to point out what to me is probably the most serious flaw in this legislation. As my colleague from North Vancouver so ably pointed out earlier today, it is the flaw of having some bureaucrat or politician determine whether or not another member can enter into the race as a political party.

I am not going to repeat all of the stuff that has been said here already about how this problem could have been avoided. Certainly it could have been avoided if the members opposite had not been so bullheaded in their ideas and had listened to some rational counter arguments.

The flaw is that if we do not pass this bill, the Canada Elections Act will fall apart at the next election, whenever that will be. I sincerely hope that it will be in the fall because this needs to be fixed before we go to the next election. To fix it the way the Liberals are proposing is no fix at all. All it will do is put into cement a problem which will perpetually dog us.

The idea that one person constitutes a party is offensive, indeed. That one person could run as an independent in any riding of the country. There is no residential requirement in the Canada Elections Act. He or she could choose to run in any riding in the country and put forward ideas as an independent. There is no discrimination against a person because that individual is not permitted to run as a party. That person could still run. Having only one person opens up a very serious problem in the next election. I can see it happening in many constituencies, having one member in a party.

For example, I know of a lady who is an avid pro animal protectionist. If she catches a mouse, it has to be caught live and released even though it may find its way back to the building before she gets back. She is going to start a party called the PM party. It does not stand for prime minister or member of parliament; it stands for protection of mice. She is going to start that party and she is legally entitled to do so. There are a lot of people who will support her. She will easily get 250 members.

We are going to have in our all candidate debates every one of the individual one issue candidates, maybe 18 or 20 of them. All of them will be entitled to the benefits of the legislation under Bill C-24.

Mr. Speaker is giving me a signal and I acknowledge that it is 1:30 on Friday afternoon. I would ask that I be granted the rest of my time when this issue is debated again.

Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders

March 26th, 2004 / 1:15 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Ken Epp Canadian Alliance Elk Island, AB

Mr. Speaker, I hope you enjoy saying Elk Island because after the next election that riding is gone. I hope not to be because I am running in the new riding of Edmonton--Sherwood Park and hope to win the election there.

Today we are dealing with Bill C-3. There are so many lessons that can be learned from the process in Bill C-3 that I think it is worthy of us to pay close attention to what is happening.

I have the difficult chore today of trying to persuade the members opposite, that huge crowd of Liberals sitting in their seats and listening to my every word and argument, to change their minds. However it appears to me that the best I can say is that they are dozing in their seats.

Let us look at the different aspects of the bill, the first being the process. The bill was to go to committee before second reading. The theory behind that was that the members of the committee could have some real input into the shaping of the bill.

I would venture to say that of all of the members in the House, including the hon. member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, I would place the member for North Vancouver even above him in terms of knowledge of electoral processes, general principles of democracy and how they can best be worked out.

It is incredible to me that when the committee came together, only ideas that came from the Liberal side were considered worthy of support and every idea that came from the opposition side was considered worthy of defeat.

We recognize that in a democracy the majority rules, and right now the Liberals have a majority in the House, that is at least on the roster if not presently in the House, but they do have the majority, which means that if a vote is held the majority carries the day. What I object to, though, strenuously, is the fact that in committee there is such an imposition of party discipline.

I have been here now for over 10 years. I was told by my predecessor, Mr. Brian O'Kurley, that the best work I would do would be in committee. When I was appointed to my first committee I looked forward to it. I felt that it was good because it was the place where we could have a democratic process. We could all give our points of view and try to persuade the people on the other side. I felt that being rationale people they would listen to my arguments and if my arguments were sufficiently persuasive that they would surely vote in favour of whatever I proposed.

In many committees over the last 10 years I have had to hang my head in democratic shame over what happens in this place because of the fact that the people with whom we are debating are not permitted to vote according to the persuasion of their mind or their conscience.

Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders

March 26th, 2004 / 12:50 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Deepak Obhrai Canadian Alliance Calgary East, AB

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise and speak to Bill C-3 for the second time. I would like at this time to acknowledge my colleague, the member for North Vancouver, who has put a tremendous amount of effort and time into this complicated bill and has been one of those big sources of information to us in the caucus as well as being here in the House debating and laying out what exactly is wrong with the bill and how it should be addressed.

This morning when he spoke again on the bill, he again outlined our party's position. We are supporting the bill, but we know there are flaws in the bill and we are trying to highlight those flaws to make sure the message goes out about those flaws. However, because of the urgency of time, the election coming up, and the Supreme Court of Canada's decision hanging over our heads, we need to have this legislation go through.

We are supporting the bill, but as he pointed out, supporting it despite the fact that work done by him and through the committee was ignored, as was that of the other parties, which all agreed to the initial proposal of a 12 man rule. As was pointed out, the former minister who was looking after this bill was absolutely adamant about any changes to his bill. He stuck to his guns despite the fact that all information indicated that the Supreme Court of Canada would throw out this bill and ask Parliament to fix it. The minister refused all kinds of compromises on anything. As the member for North Vancouver pointed out, it was a total waste of money. The bill went to the Supreme Court and we are now back here debating the bill, with the one man rule as well as what a party should consist of.

Last time the government House leader spoke to the bill, he talked about the points. He said it strengthened democracy but he wanted to make sure there were more views and henceforth they brought in several administrative issues. But the essence of the bill still remains that it is to register political parties.

Registering political parties is a very important aspect. In a democracy, people express their points of view through a party system. That is the way they do it. Where there is no party system, then it is a different system, but nevertheless, parties are essential to democracy. Therefore, it is very important that we recognize how parties are registered and how they play an important part in one of the pillars of democracy, which is direct elections.

I agree that we do not want abuse of the political system. Otherwise we will lose the trust of Canadians. They will become detached. As it is, with the current state and the way things are going, Canadians are becoming pretty cynical about politicians anyway. I hear this all the time. People write to us and talk to us and tell us that politicians are not held in that high a degree of respect, not as they should be.

How did we politicians come to lose that high degree of respect we had in the 1950s compared to the level now in the 21st century, where we have lost so much common ground? It is because of facts like these: there are a lot of flaws in democracy, many politicians have not handled themselves well, promises were made but not kept, all these things. There is a democratic deficit, as the Prime Minister likes to say.

Over a period of time the PMO became the driving force in the Parliament of Canada. It was making the decisions and the decisions started away from the other parties in the House of Commons.

Two things have happened in our democracy for the erosion of confidence with the public. One was the prime minister getting the power and then making his members of Parliament irrelevant by asking them to vote based on party lines. We saw the last prime minister many times declare votes of confidence for the government when really they were not. It was his own political agenda that he wanted to push through, bypassing his own backbenchers who were elected by the people. His members did not want this, but they could not vote their conscience for the simple reason that the prime minister determined votes of confidence in the government.

These kinds of things have a tendency of eroding confidence and that erosion carries on. When I am campaigning in my riding, people ask questions about what I can say or do. They put high hopes in their elected officials, that we can stand in the Parliament of Canada and speak what they feel is important because they elected us.

Is that really what has happened? No. The current Prime Minister talks about the democratic deficit and how he will improve upon it. We will wait and see. Honestly, he is not connecting well with Canadians on democratic deficit. We know that. The government and the Prime Minister have miserably failed to send out the message to the people in my riding that they are dealing with the many issues of which they talk, such as the democratic deficit, bringing confidence to the government and transparency.

My other point is the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy has become so bad that there is a real erosion of power of elected members. As a matter of fact I have noticed that, based on the government's track record and the prime minister's track record. They tell their deputy ministers not to listen to members of Parliament or not to listen to the members of the opposition.

I have met so many bureaucrats from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, the Department of Foreign Affairs, most important from Revenue Canada and others. Their senior bureaucrats have the least amount of respect for members of Parliament, forgetting the fact that in a democracy it is the members of Parliament who are the ones who represent the people. The bureaucrat's job is to listen and implement policies that the members of Parliament make.

What do we get? I have numerous examples of bureaucracy such as Revenue Canada in Calgary. I have not had good experiences with the bureaucrats there. The immigration office in Calgary does not talk to us. When we talk to the bureaucrats there, they have a habit of saying that they will not answer our questions.

I wrote a letter to the immigration officers in Damascus. They have not bothered replying, yet their office said that they should reply to members of Parliament so members could represent their constituents. The constituents depend on us. They want answers and they look to us for answers on issues. Sure, there are laws. We are intelligent enough to figure out that the laws are there. If the laws are not complied with, we are here to change them.

What happens to members with the bureaucracy is a simple fact. I have had people walk into my offices and say that bureaucrats have told them to go talk to their member of Parliament on small issues, not them. After seven years of this experience, I am have become exceedingly sure that another problem that needs to be addressed is the huge bureaucracy and the way it ignores the wishes of the people.

If government ministers tell their deputy ministers to listen to them only, then that message goes to the other bureaucrats, and they in turn think of a local member of Parliament as a nobody. The bureaucrats we have receive instructions from ministers.

Lo and behold there has been a change of prime minister and many ex-ministers now find themselves on backbenches. They now will get the chance to experience what they have instituted.

In order for democracy to work well, a balance needs to be met. I am not saying there are no good bureaucrats. There are excellent bureaucrats as well. However, like anyone else in any profession there are bad apples who give them a bad name. We need to find a balance among Parliament which makes the laws, the judiciary and the bureaucracy to have an effective way of governing.

Let me get back to the point of political parties.

I am the senior critic for international cooperation. CIDA gives a lot of money to promote democracies around the world. On many occasions I have had the opportunity to go to these countries. I even had the opportunity to be an election observer in Chiapas. However, that was before a former minister for international cooperation sent her own buddies to be election observers, what is called blatant patronage.

Canada has tremendous experience in elections. Elections Canada is a highly respected institution which has helped upcoming democracies. Elections Canada helped in the elections in South Africa. It has a high degree of respect in that country. Other countries ask us how democracies should work and how political parties should work. We need to set examples.

It is important that we highlight the fact that in our own Parliament we can debate issues with each other. However, it is also important to admit the fact that there are flaws in our own Parliament. The House of Commons is the institution of democracy.

It is a privilege for me to stand here today, having come from Africa 25 years ago and having adopted Canada as my country. I am very proud of that fact. I am thankful to the people of Calgary East for giving me the opportunity to represent them in this great institution, the Parliament of Canada. When I go back to my constituency, people tell me they have confidence in me, and they want me to talk about issues that are of importance to them. That comes out of the great institution of democracy.

Canada has had over 100 years of democratic experience. We can go around the world and be proud of our democracy. However, we should always strive to improve our democracy. We need to improve. We do not need to erode the freedom of speech and the freedom we have in democracy. We must be absolutely vigilant to ensure that we never lose that.

The government wanted to include the 50 member rule in the legislation. It puzzles me why we would want to restrict that. I do not know why we would want to restrict freedom of speech by having the 50 member rule. Thank God for the Supreme Court's decision that numbers are not acceptable.

My party proposed the 12 member rule, and other parties agreed with that. It would have fulfilled many of the objectives in the bill. The bill indicates that there now has to be 250 members and three people sitting in office. These are administrative issues. The 12 member rule would have met all kinds of issues.

It is with great pride that I stand in the House of Commons and debate the issue of political parties, which are in essence one of the vehicles by which to express in the House the views of the people.

In conclusion, as members know, my party has just merged, and we had a great convention. There is a new party called the Conservative Party of Canada, to which people now can express their views in the forthcoming election. I agree with the Prime Minister when he said in Alberta that there were clear views and Canadians had a clear choice. Canadians will make the choice in the next general election as to who will lead because now they have a clear choice, and I am a very proud member of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Once more, I want to just mention the great job my colleague from North Vancouver has done on this bill.

Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders

March 26th, 2004 / 12:15 p.m.
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Bloc

Stéphane Bergeron Bloc Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC

Mr. Speaker, retuning to the speech by my colleague for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, you know you can always count on me even if, despite your great care, you did not give me the floor to ask a final question during question period. Obviously I do not hold that against you. I know you follow the Standing Orders to the letter, and more power to you for that.

That said, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-3, the purpose of which is to reflect the provisions of the Figueroa ruling in the Canada Elections Act.

The Bloc Quebecois will be supporting this legislation, though I will point out immediately that we are motivated not so much by enthusiasm or support of all the provisions and implications of the bill, but rather by lack of choice. If we opposed it, and if an election were called this spring, it would mean we would end up with a legal vacuum at the end of June as far as the registration of political parties is concerned.

So this is an interim measure, as has already been clearly explained earlier today, and one that will likely be followed with another piece of legislation to definitively amend the Canada Elections Act.

My colleague from North Vancouver has made it clear that, whatever the government may say, this bill has been rushed through. Nevertheless, in committee, it was still possible to write a sunset clause into the legislation, and I think it is a fine idea.

Before getting into the heart of the matter, I would like to say a few words about the process. This process has shown that, despite repeated affirmations by the new Prime Minister and his government, whatever happens, with a Liberal government, it is same old, same old.

They promised us, with their hands on their hearts, that they would take the suggestions and proposals of members of parliament into consideration, listen to the opposition parties and to give MPs a greater role. But what really happened? As soon as the government House leader had an opportunity to introduce legislation, he sent it to committee before second reading, apparently so that we could really improve it.

But he rushed the committee's consideration of the bill, so much so that, at the first meeting, government members were ready to proceed with clause by clause study without even having heard a single witness. Does this really exemplify a political party that wants—or so it claims—to consult parliamentarians by taking pains to send this bill to committee before second reading, supposedly to be able to make amendments? The answer is no.

In fact, no substantial amendments were made to this bill. It came back in nearly identical form, despite the fact that the Chief Electoral Officer himself, who is giving a speech at the National Press Club as we speak, expressed a number of reservations with respect to the bills provisions.

We could have made the amendments necessary to satisfy the reservations of the Chief Electoral Officer, reservations we share, as it happens. Nevertheless, the government refused to consider our recommendations and our suggestions, and the bill came back as is.

The problem the Chief Electoral Officer has with this is that the bill contains provisions providing him with discretionary authority over determining whether each political party's purpose is to participate inpublic affairs and whether it is indeed pursuing the fundamental mission it has publicly assumed.

This officer of Parliament, who must be an independent and objective judge of the application of the Elections Act, would thus find himself with the right to interfere in the conduct of the internal affairs of political parties. Obviously, this raises a number of concerns on our part, as well as on the part of other parties in this House, and even government members.

We would have liked to have seen these provisions removed, as suggested by the Chief Electoral Officer. That, however, did not happen. The government wanted to proceed rapidly, for partisan and electoral purposes. The government is hoping for a spring election and it needed absolute assurance that Bill C-3 was going to be passed before the election call, in order to avoid the legal vacuum that would have resulted as soon as we got to the end of June.

This double talk from the government, and its specious attitude, as it claims, on the one hand, that it will consult Parliament more, while, on the other, it is tenaciously sticking to the old ways we had gotten used to under the previous Prime Minister, are regrettable.

This was obvious—and this is an aside prompted by the presence in this House of my colleague from Madawaska—Restigouche—in the matter of the deportation of the Acadians, which I have been shepherding through this House since 1999.

That was to be expected from the previous government, with the atmosphere of confrontation that seemed to be the order of the day, although I was not in the least expecting it at first. I was, moreover, greatly surprised at the first speech given in this House on that subject by a colleague from the Liberal Party, that self-same member for Madawaska—Restigouche. The very negative attitude from the government party toward my motion was a great surprise to me.

However, although Motion No. 382 was, I admit, a bit out of date given the royal proclamation of last December, I was even more surprised to see that the government did not even bother to agree to speak to me, listen to me and discuss this with me, if only to reach an agreement so that, with the unanimous consent of the House, I could withdraw or amend the motion, and thereby favourably acknowledge the government's very honourable gesture of last December, which was the royal proclamation.

But no. They are saying, “There is no way we will agree to talk with that evil separatist!” So, the House is resigned to voting against a motion on the Acadian people in a year we should be celebrating the 400th anniversary of the founding of Acadia.

They would rather vote against the motion by the hon. member for Verchères—Les-Patriotes than take the time to speak, even briefly, with him to reach a solution that is fair to everyone and prevent this motion on the Acadian people from being defeated in this House in the year of the 400th anniversary of the founding of Acadia.

And they would have me believe that this government wants to enhance the role of parliamentarians, to really listen to parliamentarians and make a real effort to consider the opinion of the opposition parties. This is nonsense. There was more proof of this today with Bill C-3.

To avoid a legislative vacuum, we have to vote in favour of deficient and poorly crafted legislation. I feel like this is a case of déjà vu. It is Back to the Future .

I rose in this House during a previous review of the Canada Elections Act. I told the government House leader at the time that if the government did not change the 50-candidate requirement for political party registration in the Elections Act, that we would, in any event—in addition to having spent taxpayers' money to defend our case in court—eventually end up here in this House adopting new legislation to reflect the court rulings.

But no, defeat after defeat in the courts, the government went all the way to the Supreme Court only to be told what we already knew: that the current 50-candidate provisions in the Elections Act were unconstitutional.

Taxpayer dollars were spent when we already knew that we would eventually wind up back in this House changing these provisions of the Elections Act, but no one wanted to listen to the opposition. No one wanted to listen to us then, any more than they want to listen to us now.

This is deficient legislation, as I was saying, that we will have to support in order to avoid a legislative vacuum. Moreover, it is unfortunate that, for procedural reasons, at report stage, we were unable to address the motion by my colleague from Palliser, which seemed most desirable and legitimate.

Despite the arguments presented this morning by the government House leader, I still find that a political party, to be registered as such, must field at least two candidates. Otherwise you end up with an individual who runs for an election and agrees with himself.

A political party implies an association, a group. There cannot be a group with one individual. The provisions of the current bill state that there must be at least 250 members, and at least 3 party officers in addition to the party leader. However, this principle, the notion of association or group, also has to be reflected in the number of candidates the party fields during a general election.

I think that this point could easily have been defended before the courts. Indeed, it would have been preferable to be able to debate the amendment of the hon. member for Palliser and possibly adopt it. Unfortunately, because of technicalities and procedural details, we will not have had an opportunity to deal with this proposed amendment. The result is that the act remains unchanged, with the possibility for a party to present only one candidate.

This seems totally ridiculous, considering the very principle whereby a political party is an association of people, and that this association or group should have a number of candidates run for it in an election. In my mind, in the minds of Bloc Quebecois members—and, I would assume, in the minds of members from other parties in this House, including the New Democratic Party—it takes at least two candidates for a political formation to be recognized and registered as such.

This is another flaw in the proposed legislation. Despite the very legitimate points that I just mentioned, we will have no other option, as I said earlier, than to support this bill.

We will do so responsibly, while keeping in mind that if we did not support it, we would find ourselves in a very undesirable legal vacuum.

Again, we will support this motion, but we will not do so with great enthusiasm.

Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders

March 26th, 2004 / 10:50 a.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Ted White Canadian Alliance North Vancouver, BC

Mr. Speaker, I think it was quite apparent in my speech that I feel some compassion for the Chief Electoral Officer who would be faced with the problem of trying to administer a bill that would not only put him in an almost partisan position of making judgments on people who are registering, but would also have him dealing with the very complicated administration of the bill in order to determine whether a person should be registered as a party.

Yes, the committee heard the concern that individuals could try to take advantage of the bill to get themselves into a position where they could become an entity that received political donations, with the very generous tax credits that go along with that, and that in time would be able to build quite a large organization whose purpose would be to get huge donations with nice tax rebates and everything little else. If they managed to run a few token candidates and got a percentage of the vote, then they would also get election rebates, which would help foster even more growth and fill their coffers.

Therefore, it is definitely a nightmare. It makes me think immediately of the other bill, Bill C-24, that we passed recently, under protest, which had to do with the registration of electoral district associations, the reporting of nomination contests and so on.

Just in talking with many of my colleagues around this place who have gone through nomination contests over the last couple of months, many of them are completely ignorant of the new rules and have already broken the law, inadvertently, in terms of what is required for their nominations.

I have discovered that many of my colleagues did not even know that they had to appoint an official agent, that they had to have a financial agent who opened a bank account and deposited all the money for the campaign into that account, that they could not spend without taking money out of that account to then spend it and that it had to be documented, that if any candidate took in more than $1,000 or spent more than $1,000, he or she will be required to file a report with Elections Canada.

I have come across a widespread ignorance of that provision in Bill C-24. Even though everyone on the government side stood and supported it, they obviously did not know what they were supporting. That certainly is an administrative nightmare for Elections Canada as well.

I heard an example today of a nomination contest in British Columbia where one of the candidates had a donor give money to the riding association, which then voted at its board meeting to send the money on to the candidate's financial agent. That cannot be done under Bill C-24. That is an illegal transfer of assets. The bill would require that money to be refunded.

It raises the interesting prospect that the riding association has to refund the money to the donor, but does the candidate have to refund it to the riding association? I do not know. I think once the Chief Electoral Officer or his department officials start to look at those records there will be quite a problem in sorting out that administrative mess.

In terms of the administrative problems in Bill C-3, there is much less of a problem than there is in Bill C-24. I would hate to be administering Bill C-24 right now, especially after 308 nominations for several parties. If we were to multiply that by at least three parties, we would have over 1,000 nomination contests. That will be an absolute mess.

It is supposed to be reported in 90 days. I suspect it will take 90 years to sort it out. Time will tell.

Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders

March 26th, 2004 / 10:30 a.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Ted White Canadian Alliance North Vancouver, BC

Mr. Speaker, I was rather hoping there would be enough time for me to ask some further questions because the minister really did not answer my question, although he seemed quite happy to roll over and play dead for the Supreme Court of Canada, as if this place does not matter.

This is supposed to be the supreme legislative body in the whole country. We represent the people of Canada. We are supposed to be making the rules, not the Supreme Court. We had agreement from parties that they would drop the legal challenge and accept 12 as the number for a registered party. There is no excuse for it. It was pigheadedness and it wasted probably millions of taxpayer dollars fighting that in court.

The minister should be ashamed because he at the time did not support the amendment.

The minister claimed he sent the bill to committee before second reading because he wanted us to give it serious consideration and see what amendments we should make to make it workable and so on. Well, it was a complete sham.

We sent the bill to committee. The very first day that it appeared in committee it was ready for clause by clause. All the talk by the government about dealing with the democratic deficit is just nonsense. The very minister who is supposed to be in charge of dealing with the democratic deficit in this place, with his very first bill to committee, tried to rush it through so fast we could hardly see it go through the room.

We got to committee to discuss the bill. The minister appeared as a witness. One of my first questions to him was, had he made any of the parties affected by the bill aware of its existence. I do not have time to look in the exact transcript, but his answer was along the lines, of to his knowledge, no, the parties affected by the bill had not even been told of its existence. This was a bill that was to go through committee at super speed, go through the House at super speed and the people who would be affected by it did not even know it existed.

Right after the minister appeared as a witness, we on the official opposition side tried to get permission from the committee to bring forward other witnesses. The Liberals on committee tried to go straight to clause by clause with no witnesses, even though they had just heard that the parties affected by the bill did not even know it existed.

It was only after the official opposition threatened to filibuster the committee that an agreement was reached to have some witnesses, and then we only got two. They were not even going to agree to have the chief electoral officer appear. The person who had to administer the bill would not be a witness. It was only after the official opposition insisted that we got the chief electoral officer and Mr. Miguel Figueroa of the Communist Party who was the entity which got us into this pickle in the first place.

A few days later at committee we had those two witnesses before us. Of course Mr. Figueroa was completely surprised by the phone call he received him to appear before committee because, as the minister admitted, he had no idea that the bill even existed.

When I made some phone calls to some of the other parties, they did not know either. It was a huge surprise to them. Unfortunately, they were not given the courtesy of appearing before the committee, but we did hear from Mr. Figueroa and the chief electoral officer.

During the testimony given by the chief electoral officer, he mentioned a part of the bill that disturbed him a great deal. It was the part of the bill that would require him to make judgments about the appropriateness of a platform or policies advanced by political parties before he could deem it appropriate to register a particular party.

As Mr. Kingsley quite properly pointed out, it is entirely inappropriate for a non-partisan chief electoral officer to be making such judgments or to be put in the position of having to even consider making such judgments. He requested that the committee remove those sections of the bill. In fact he had even brought legal counsel with him who had taken the time to draft amendments which would achieve that goal so that we would not have to think about that and do it within the committee structure itself.

After some discussion about that possibility, Mr. Figueroa came forward to be a witness. He also expressed similar concerns about the bill and supported the amendments proposed by Mr. Kingsley.

Both the chief electoral officer and Mr. Figueroa suggested that instead of rushing the bill through committee, as we were doing, we should spend a little time to get it right. This is what is so appalling about the situation. The minister just stood not five minutes ago and said that the bill was not perfect. Yet he had told us we were taking it to committee before second reading so we could get it perfect. Once it got there, he was not interested in having us do anything with it. It is an extremely frustrating situation because we could have made the bill into good legislation that truly would have dealt with the problem and fixed it once and for all.

Frankly, the bill going through this place is no better than the pickle we were in before the bill was introduced. Yet we are between a rock and a hard place because we have to pass the bill before the end of next week. If we do not, the Canada Elections Act falls apart in June.

Because many sections of the Canada Elections Act are affected by the Supreme Court judgment in this case, the act will cease to function on what I think is June 27 of this year. We obviously have to pass this before the end of next week to keep the act intact. Otherwise we cannot go to an election, and I know the government wants to do that. What a nasty position we are in.

The government, in its haste, thought it could get this bill through the House really quickly, without amendments. It has tried to persuade us to put it through because the Canada Elections Act will fall apart. Frankly, it would have gone through the House a lot more quickly if the Liberals had been willing to listen to the amendments and suggestions that were brought to them. If they had been willing to hear a few more witnesses and if they had been truly willing to address the democratic deficit, as the minister keeps saying he wants to, we could have fixed the bill, got it perfect and it would have already been passed.

In committee I asked the chief electoral officer a question about of the Supreme Court ruling. Members will recall the Supreme Court ruled that sections of the elections act requiring the 50 candidate rule, that is a party to be registered must have 50 candidates in an election, were unconstitutional. My question to the chief electoral officer was that if an election was called in the spring, even if this bill had been passed, the Supreme Court had stayed the effect of its ruling until June 27.

Again the chief electoral officer is in another pickle because he has to work under an electoral law that has been deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada, and does not become fixed until June. How will he rule on the registration of parties over the next few months? Does he rule using the defective law that has been ruled unconstitutional or does he rule based on good will, that is with the knowledge that this other bill will be coming down the pike, which will fix the problem?

How would you like to be in that position, Mr. Speaker, where you do not know whether to apply an unconstitutional law and try to enforce it or to apply a law that does not even exist yet and which you know will fix the problem? It is a horrible predicament for the chief electoral officer. Again, we could have fixed it in committee. We had the opportunity to properly amend the bill and the act, to fix it, and the minister was not interested.

The government would have us believe that this bill is simply about the definition and registration of political parties in Canada. As I have mentioned, the truth is it only exists due to a Supreme Court ruling that came about because of the meanspirited oppression of small parties by the government opposite. Bill C-3 is designed to put the government into compliance with a unanimous decision of the Supreme Court of Canada. It was handed down on June 27, 2003.

It is important to note that it was a unanimous decision. There was no hesitation in terms of the Supreme Court ruling that what the government was trying to do with its 50 candidate rule was completely anti-democratic and unconstitutional.

The court ruled that the 50 candidate threshold for registration of a political party was unconstitutional and that fact had been obvious to just about everyone except the government. Maybe it really knew, but it wanted to keep that rule in place as long as it possibly could to prevent competition from smaller parties. That rule greatly affected us in the early days of the growth of the Reform Party.

As the House knows, I am one of the original members of Parliament elected under the Reform banner. In 1992 and 1993, as we were building for a possible 1993 election, we knew we would be penalized greatly. We knew we would not even to have our name on the ballot if we could not get 50 candidates to run across the country. I know the Bloc also was being targeted at the time because there was a growth of the Bloc in Quebec and it perhaps would not be able to get 50 candidates on the ballot either. That was an attempt by the established parties to prevent any threat from the growth of a smaller party that may affect them.

Luckily, we were able to build support regardless and irrespective of the 50 candidate rule and that is why we are in the House today as official opposition and perhaps now about to take the government benches in the next couple of months.

I guess the real shocker for the government was when the Supreme Court of Canada struck down sections of the Elections Act. However, instead of saying that perhaps the number 12 or some other number would be satisfactory, it said that one person constituted a party. The government was complaining when the court in Ontario ruled that two persons was a party. That was the basis, I believe, for the amendment that was being proposed today by the NDP. In Ontario the government, after having had the chance to accept the 12 candidate rule, which it rejected, had an opportunity to accept a two candidate rule from the Ontario court ruling, but no. Pigheaded as it was, on it went spending other people's money to challenge it in court until it ended up with a one candidate rule. What a ridiculous situation we find ourselves in that one person constitutes a political party. I guess they reap what they sow.

What the government is trying to do in Bill C-3, which was formerly Bill C-51 prior to prorogation, is to provide some additional conditions for registration of a party to try to get around the potential problems that can occur if just anyone walks in off the street and registers as a political party in order to get all the benefits of tax receipts for donations and rebates if they run an election, and so on.

The government has tried to increase the amount of bureaucracy that goes along with registering a party to counter this thing that only one person constitutes a party. One of the bits of bureaucracy it has put in there is the one I just mentioned a few minutes ago, which requires the Chief Electoral Officer to determine whether or not a party is a political entity based on its platform and its policies.

To try to deal with the problem that way is really inappropriate. I feel that it is a real pity that the government is proceeding with this. The Chief Electoral Officer warned that his office could be open to a legal challenge, to lawsuits, because of rulings he makes under clauses of the bill. Someone who is dissatisfied with a ruling that he has made will obviously take it to court and we may end up mired in years and years of court challenges again, all the way to the Supreme Court, based on this ridiculous clause that the Chief Electoral Officer should be partisan in some way and make judgments about political parties coming for registration.

The bill also requires that the party must have three officers, in addition to its leader, must have appointed a chief agent and an auditor, and must have a total of 250 electors who are members of the party. Those electors must sign declarations confirming their support.

The leader of the Communist Party, who started the original legal challenge, when he came before the committee as a witness, asked us if we would consider lowering that threshold of 250 members down to 125. His argument I think from memory was based on just the logistics of trying to get people across the country to sign declarations and that it would be a lot easier if it were a smaller number.

I do not have any strong feelings about that particular aspect but I did want to get it on the record because it was presented by a witness to the committee.

In addition to the various requirements for registration, part of the ruling by the Supreme Court was that the assets of a suspended party no longer needed to be liquidated and paid to the Receiver General. When we think about that, what an evil provision that was in the previous part of the Elections Act. If a party could not run 50 candidates in a general election it was required to sell all of its assets and turn them over to the Receiver General.

That was a mean-spirited type of law that was aimed clearly at the Reform Party of Canada and the Bloc Quebecois in 1992-93 to try to take away their ability to fight a subsequent election if they were not able to get 50 candidates in that 1993 election. What a mean-spirited attempt to keep control right there on the government side.

Luckily, the Supreme Court saw through that mean-spirited attempt to suppress smaller parties and eliminated that. Small parties no longer need to sell off all their assets and turn them over to the Receiver General if they cannot run 50 candidates in an election.

I should point out that we on this side of the House have consistently supported a lower registration threshold. As I mentioned, I have tried consistently, in my role as critic for these electoral issues over the last decade, to get the government to accept the number 12 as being the appropriate number but without success to date. Perhaps when we come back here after an election and I am the minister, we will actually get it done, but we will see whether that actually happens.

I would like to give a bit of history about the way the registration of political parties does work under the Canada Elections Act. The registration process was first advocated in 1966 by the commission on election expenses, known as the Barbeau committee. It concluded that political parties should be recognized as legal entities to encourage the development of the democratic system.

It is interesting that before 1966, the Communist Party, and anybody who just wanted to get a few people together and call themselves a political party, actually did not even need to register anyway. That is an interesting observation. It is only since 1966 that it has been necessary.

In 1970, rules for the registration of political parties were introduced in the Canada Elections Act and political parties that fulfilled certain administrative requirements were admitted. In 1974, the Election Expenses Act introduced spending limits for registered political parties and candidates.

That leads me into an interesting sidebar which is the spending by third parties. We are currently waiting for another ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada which I think will shake the government once again because it deals with spending by third parties. I have no doubt that members are well aware that the present leader of our party was involved in the challenge by the National Citizens' Coalition of the government's right to control the spending of third parties.

I would confidently predict that the Supreme Court will strike down that part of the Elections Act. It has been struck down at every other court level. It has been struck down three times in Alberta and twice I believe in British Columbia. It has been struck down in Ontario and it is going the way of the dodo. When that happens, what a mess it will make of the Elections Act because it will blow wide open all the controls on expenses that we as candidates have during an election campaign. I am not sure how many of my colleagues are ready for that eventuality, but we will be faced with a situation where the cap will be blown right off the top of our expenditure limitations.

I am pleased to have had the opportunity to speak today at third reading of Bill C-3. I look forward to answering any questions that come my way.

Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders

March 26th, 2004 / 10:20 a.m.
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Liberal

Jacques Saada Liberal Brossard—La Prairie, QC

Mr. Speaker, let me go directly to the substance of the matter and not comment the political allegations made about my predecessors or myself.

On the substance, I believe the issue is clear. A proposal to recognize a 12 candidate party would have been rejected by the Supreme Court. The problem would not have been solved.

My problem and our problem, as a democratic society, is not the fact that Mr. Figueroa made a complaint and that the matter was brought before the Supreme Court. The question that was raised is the substantial question as to how to define a political party in Canada.

The Supreme Court said very clearly that the number of candidates cannot be an objective or a factor in defining a political party. Whether one, two or 50 candidates are proposed, it is not the number of candidates that must be the determining factor in the existence of a political party.

As for the allegation made by my colleague about an agreement with Figueroa, I am sorry, but it seems to me that an agreement between an MP and a complainant in a court case has less weight than a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada.

Concerning the second allegation, I think a very clear distinction must be made between a political party and an independent candidate.

A political party under Bill C-3 would need to have 250 members that support registration of the party. It must have three officers in addition to the leader, in other words it cannot be a person alone. The party which is registering implies that the party accepts the burdens of reporting quarterly and annually which independent candidates do not have to face. The bill therefore makes a difference between independent candidates and a registered party. Once this is established, then in this case every individual concerned by the application of the bill will have to assume responsibility for the job they have to do.

Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders

March 26th, 2004 / 10:10 a.m.
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Liberal

Jacques Saada Liberal Brossard—La Prairie, QC

moved that the bill be read the third time and passed.

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to begin debate at third reading stage on Bill C-3, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act.

Bill C-3 responds to the Supreme Court decision in the Figueroa case, just in time for us to keep our electoral system fully operational. In the Figueroa case, the court determined that the 50-candidate requirement was in violation of the charter because it is detrimental to small parties. However, the court gave Parliament one year, that is until June 27, 2004, to change the legislation. Therefore, we must act now in order to meet that deadline.

Bill C-3 replaces the existing 50-candidate requirement for political party registration with a new purpose-based definition of “political party”. It also introduces new rules concerning registration and accountability, and additional measures to protect the integrity of the political financing system.

In developing these measures, we have taken into account the fact that parties must have a considerable degree of autonomy in order to perform their essential role in Canadian society. At the same time, of course, it is important to ensure transparency and accountability. This is a delicate balance that must be achieved to allow the parties to develop without excessive regulation, while making certain that they do not the system and that they remain accountable.

Bill C-3 makes it possible to achieve this. Bill C-3 may not be perfect and is not intended to be a definitive solution, but we think it is fair and balanced, while meeting the deadline imposed by the Supreme Court.

If I may, I would like to speak briefly about the issues raised during the debate on this bill. There were questions about the fairness of the proposed measures. For example, while recognizing that a requirement to have 50 candidates was too high, some people wondered whether the new rule requiring only one candidate to be presented was sufficient. These are legitimate questions.

I will reply that the Supreme Court was very clear: imposing candidate thresholds is not an appropriate way to evaluate party legitimacy, and thresholds should not be used to exclude any voices from the political debate. The court's reasoning is convincing.

Canada is a plural society in which diverse opinions are reflected. Our system for the registration of political parties ought to be open to this reality. Therefore it follows that we must seek other ways to define which entities deserve to be recognized as political parties. That is what the bill will allow.

In this respect, the need to respond to the Supreme Court's decision in the Figueroa case has given us an opportunity, a chance to rethink the party registration system so that it will be more accessible to legitimate parties, while preventing abuses by those who are not. This approach is in line with government objectives in the framework for action on democratic reform.

The growth in the number of political parties resulting from this new requirement that only one candidate need be presented will open a broader range of perspectives. More choice for the voters should result in a situation where Canadians are more interested in the political process. This system could thus make a contribution to efforts aimed at halting the decline in voter turnout.

That is particularly true of young Canadians and groups where participation is low. The existence of more parties, and thus a wider range of viewpoints, should incite the parties to review their traditional approaches and take more interest in the people overlooked by the system.

While I strongly believe that Bill C-3 strikes an appropriate balance and is the best solution to the Figueroa ruling at the present time, it is not the end of the discussion.

The issues raised are of great importance and legitimate concerns have been expressed. This is why the government amended the bill to add a two year sunset clause. This ensures that the issues addressed by the bill will be revisited in the near future. In fact when Bill C-3 was introduced, I wrote to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs inviting it to undertake, after passage of the bill, a review of the wider implications of the Figueroa ruling and other aspects of the electoral process. The bill provides us with a bridge to that broader review.

Electoral reform is critical to the continued strengthening of our democracy. Parliamentarians are at the heart of this debate and I look forward to the committee's views. I have asked it to bring forward recommendations in the form of draft legislation within one year. This will allow further study of the issues surrounding party registration and, combined with the sunset clause, will ensure that parliamentarians can continue to examine these matters and will have the opportunity to suggest refinements and reforms. At the same time, the Supreme Court's deadline will be met.

The bill that is before us today is critical. We need to ensure that the Canada Elections Act remains operational after June 27. We also need to ensure that parties are genuine and accountable, and that our electoral system is not open to abuse. Bill C-3 achieves these goals in a fair and balanced way. It respects the fact that political parties are on the front line of our democratic system and must be allowed to develop and compete openly and operate freely. At the same time, the bill ensures that our electoral system remains fair, accountable and transparent to all, and that it is not open to abuse.

While not the final word, Bill C-3 strikes this balance in a way that satisfies our twin imperatives. It meets the June 27 deadline while guaranteeing an ongoing role for parliamentarians in examining these matters in the future.

I would like to appeal to all my colleagues to support this bill, which is extremely important to all of us and to our democracy.

Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders

March 26th, 2004 / 10:05 a.m.
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The Deputy Speaker

I have a ruling on Bill C-3, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act. There is one motion in amendment standing on the notice paper for the report stage of Bill C-3.

Motion No. 1 will not be selected by the Chair as it could have been presented in committee and it has not met the notice requirement pursuant to Standing Order 76(2). Consequently, the House will proceed to consider the motion to concur in report stage.

Business of the HouseOral Question Period

March 25th, 2004 / 3 p.m.
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Brossard—La Prairie Québec

Liberal

Jacques Saada LiberalLeader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister responsible for Democratic Reform

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to answer the Thursday question.

This afternoon, we will continue the budget debate. Tomorrow, we will begin consideration at the report and subsequent stages of Bill C-3, the Canada Elections Act, followed by a motion for referral of Bill C-25, the whistleblower bill, to a committee before second reading.

Monday and Tuesday we will continue with the budget debate. Wednesday, we will have votes on ways and means motions. We will then resume consideration of any bill that did not get finished on Friday, Bill C-11 in particular, plus of course, if possible, Bill C-9 on drugs. Next Thursday, I hope we will be able to start second reading of the budget bill.

As for the committees, all I can say is that I am pleased the Standing Committee on Public Accounts will be able to make some progress during the week we are not sitting here in the House.

Customs TariffGovernment Orders

March 23rd, 2004 / 1 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Ted White Canadian Alliance North Vancouver, BC

Mr. Speaker, we have had a very interesting debate today. When we started this morning, nobody expected it would move along this way, but it has been certainly interesting.

The Conservative Party will support the bill because we support free trade. However, this has given all of us an opportunity to talk in a wider frame about free trade and the sorts of problems that do or do not occur.

Before continuing on Bill C-21, I would like to mention an exchange that took place a little earlier between myself and a member of the NDP. He talked about unfair competition and that if there was unfair competition, we would surely want to have protection in place for the companies that were subjected to this unfair competition.

That hits pretty close to home. Prior to being a member of Parliament, I was in business for myself. I had a company with 10 employees, and at one stage in the 1980's, we were in the facsimile business, selling fax machines. That was about the time when Office Depot and Staples started expanding into British Columbia. They were opening stores in the Vancouver area where I was selling fax machines. Suddenly people could buy fax machines from Staples and Office Depot for a couple of hundred dollars less than the fax machines I sold.

I guess my colleague from the NDP would probably argue that was unfair competition. This big box store was coming in taking away the livelihood of my employees and all the stuff that went along with it. However, I did not look at it that way.

When we say it is unfair, unfair for whom? It was wonderful for consumers. Now they could buy a product at $200 less than they could from me and more people could afford it. As a result, Office Depot and Staples could employ many more people than I could. They could sell the types of products that they could bring into the marketplace, which the small retailers could not.

Instead of crying, weeping, going to government and demanding and asking for help to protect my business, I sat down and took a look at what Staples and Office Depot could not do that I could as a small business entrepreneur. I discovered that my technicians were trained to service the fax machines, and they could service the machines that were sold by Staples and Office Depot. What is more, the market became bigger because Office Depot and Staples were selling a lot more fax machines than I ever could, so we had more servicing opportunities than we ever had before.

I also looked around at products. We chose a line of specialty telephone equipment that Staples and Office Depot could not sell because it was too complicated and required too much pre-selling for a customer to understand how it would be beneficial.

There are always ways for an innovative business person to move aside from problems that are created by a free marketplace and to find something else that works. It is called niche marketing and it works really well. That is why Northern Telecom is so successful. It is in a niche market. It started at a time when virtually no one serviced that part of the telecommunication equipment market. It has become the world leader in the supply of telecommunication equipment.

When we talk about bills like this one and the whole environment of free trade, we have to remember that free trade has really and truly helped countries like Canada. All of the other countries of the world that have opened their borders now have higher living standards, better wages and just generally a better environment because of free trade.

I left this example until after I had given my own personal example. One of the Bloc members earlier talked about a manufacturer of paper bags in his riding who was distressed because those bags could now be made more cheaply in China. I assume this manufacturer has complained to his member of Parliament about this terrible state of affairs and has asked what the government can do to protect his paper bag manufacturing plant.

I am making some assumptions, but I think they are a reasonable assumption. The correct approach is to be honest with that manufacturer and tell him that the government policy is free trade and that he will have to work out a way to make his business work in this environment, not with government subsidies, not with protection from tariffs. Rather he should look at what he is manufacturing.

If somebody else is knocking him out of the marketplace, he should find something else to make. Perhaps he can make a specialty plastic bag, one of those wine carriers we see being sold a lot now. They are very much in vogue. There is string attached, and it is a nice type of plastic bag or paper bag in which to carry our wine when we go out to visit someone for dinner. There could be gift bags. There could be a whole range of different options for that manufacturer to get back into the marketplace in an niche market that cannot be touched by China because it is too small for that mass market and yet very profitable. There are other examples like this, too.

I am originally from New Zealand. As hon. members would know, in the mid-nineties New Zealand went bankrupt. What happened? It had to remove almost all the subsidies and grants that were given to farmers in New Zealand. My goodness, there was a lot of wailing, weeping and moaning about what would happen, and certainly a number of farmers went bankrupt. However, within 10 years there were three times as many farmers in New Zealand as there were prior to the removal of subsidies because farming had suddenly become profitable. Farmers were able to use their initiative to find niche markets.

At one stage some farmers in New Zealand were providing most of the mozzarella for Pizza Hut in the United States. They discovered they could make a quality mozzarella at the right price to fill that niche market. Farmers had been making orange cheddar previously, which everybody made, and governments filled warehouses full of cheddar that nobody needed. It was wonderful. The New Zealand farmers were forced into the position of getting off that government reliance and on to the idea of niche markets.

I do not know if hon. members have ever been there, but they should take a trip to New Zealand, go to a supermarket and take a look at the dairy department. They will be astounded at the variety and choice in that supermarket. There are so many cottage industries in the dairy industry making specialty cheeses for the yuppie market, I suppose we could call it. In addition, there are flavoured whipping creams in New Zealand. We can get kahlua whipping cream and grand marnier whipping cream. We cannot even get that in Canada because it is still illegal to sell alcohol added to those products. It is not that simple, but the removal of subsidies and grants has spawned an industry and initiative that was never there before.

I will give a home grown example. In British Columbia in the early 1980s the wine industry was heavily subsidized. Anyone who grew grapes would be guaranteed to get a huge government subsidy to stay in business. Everybody knew the wine was absolutely awful. Everybody knew it was dreadful stuff. The government of Bill Bennett at the time removed the subsidies.

Other colleagues from British Columbia will remember the screaming, yelling, wailing and moaning. Everyone was going out of business. It would be just awful. What has happened? It encouraged the industry to take a long, hard look at itself, to get rid of the junk grapes that it was growing, to start growing quality grapes and to get good winemakers from around the world. Winemakers came from France, New Zealand, Italy and Germany to help the industry develop, and now look at it today. British Columbia produces world-class wine.

Governments do not do anybody any favours by providing grants and subsidies to business. It stifles initiative and it stifles a choice in the community for consumers. It keeps prices high. If they wanted, everybody in the House could have a BlackBerry and most people could have a computer at home because of free markets that allow those products to be manufactured at a low enough price for the average person to buy in a store in Canada.

I can remember when a computer could only be purchased from a specialty store and cost $12,000. When my business purchased its first computer in 1979, it cost more than $12,000. Very few people even sold a computer. It had 12 inch floppy discs that we put into it. Only 80K of information was held on one of these great big discs, and it cost $12,000.

I had a Future Shop flyer in front of me earlier today. We can buy a desktop computer now, with a monitor and with 2.8 gigabytes of storage, for $499. What produces that sort of situation is free and open markets.

That is why at the end of the day we will be supporting the bill, because we truly believe in open markets and the reduction of tariffs. In fact, the only thing I am unhappy about with the bill is that it does not remove the tariffs completely. It maintains in place preferential treatment for some countries and less preferential treatment for others. At least it has been a step along the way, because when I immigrated to Canada in 1979 it was very much like New Zealand had been earlier with lots of protective tariffs in place and very high prices for a lot of products. It certainly is a much better environment today.

Before I finish, I need to mention something that was mentioned earlier by some of my colleagues and that is the unholy rush in which the bill is being pushed through the House. The government must have seen this situation coming up at least a year or two ago. There was a sunset clause on these tariffs. Everyone knew they were to expire very soon. Why did the government leave it until so close to the expiry date? The expiry date was to be June 30 this year. No one can tell me that no one in government recognized a year ago that this was going to happen.

Why did the government leave the bill until two or three weeks before an election call to bring it to the House? Now we are rushing the bill through without proper consideration of alternatives in order to make sure that it can stay in place when we go to an election and the House will not be here to make sure that it is done prior to June. This is typical of what has been happening in the House over the last few weeks.

I have been working on Bill C-3 which deals with the definition of political parties. That bill was introduced in the House when we came back after prorogation. The minister persuaded us that he wanted it to go to committee before second reading so that we could study the bill and make wise amendments to it and so on.

The minister indicated that he was truly interested in hearing input, that we were in a new era, that we would be getting rid of the deficit of democracy around this place. What happened when we went to committee on Bill C-3, the very first question I asked the minister was whether he or his department had contacted anybody affected by the bill and his answer, incredibly, was no.

Here we were with a bill already before committee prior to second reading. It had only been introduced and it went straight to committee and the minister had not even told the people affected by the bill that it was in process. Why? He wanted it through quickly because if it is not in place by June, it is a similar sort of situation. We have the Supreme Court of Canada ruling that the Elections Act will fall apart if we do not have an amendment in place by June, so the minister is panicking to get this bill in place and through the Senate.

In fact, the bill was supposed to come back today. The minister tried to get unanimous consent in the House to waive the customary three days' notice to bring it back and to put it on the Order Paper today. He could not get that consent, but there is this rush to get the bill back into the House because the government knows it is running out of time. It wants to get it through before the election call. Instead of having proper consideration of the bill, informing the people who will be affected by it, getting some news releases out and making the public aware of the bill, he is trying to get it through as quickly as possible with the fewest people possible noticing as well.

In committee I asked the minister if he had notified anyone. His response was no. I asked if we were getting any witnesses. His response was no. It ended up that the opposition, the Conservative Party, had to filibuster in order to get some witnesses, to even be able to tell the people affected by the bill that it was happening.

We filibustered in the committee and about a week later we managed to get the Chief Electoral Officer in as a witness. Also, at my request, the head of the Communist Party of Canada was able to come from Toronto. However, the government would not allow anyone else from the small parties, such as the Green Party, who would be affected by the bill.

The two witnesses gave their testimony. The Chief Electoral Officer raised some terrible problems with the bill and suggested some very wise amendments. Right after the witnesses appeared, the minister wanted us to go ahead and do the clause by clause study of the bill. We had to threaten filibustering again in order to even consider the evidence given by the witnesses.

Some very wise amendments were suggested by the Chief Electoral Officer. We met again a few days later in committee with the minister having given an indication he was open to discussion about the amendments but in the end he would not approve any of them.

What a futile exercise it turned out to be in the same sort of circumstance as this bill. It is rushing through legislation without proper consideration, without hearing witnesses and without giving proper amendments so a faulty piece of legislation will be back in the House, I am sure, in the next few days. It is going to be rammed through the House so that we can go to an election and it is crammed with problems.

The Chief Electoral Officer said that Bill C-3 is forcing him into a position where he will have to make judgments about the purposes of political parties. In order to register them he would have to determine whether the Liberal Party of Canada, for example, actually has a purpose.

Mr. Speaker, how would you like to be in that position? That single person who is supposed to be non-partisan, completely independent of any of the political parties will be put in a position of having to determine and then sign off on paperwork that he is satisfied that the political party he is registering has a political purpose. That is the type of legislation we are getting because of this unholy rush to get things through before an election.

I realize that the bill before us is not quite as bad. It deals with a situation that has been well discussed in the past. It deals with free trade. It certainly has given us an opportunity, as I mentioned, to talk a fair bit about free trade today and to get some of our concerns on the table. We have heard a variety of opinions expressed today.

There are some who would like to see us move back to more protectionism. The members of the Bloc, whom I like to call the NDP of Quebec, would like to side with the NDP and see more protectionism. They think that would be helpful but it is not. All of the evidence that a person can gather shows that protectionism destroys jobs. Protectionism reduces consumer selection and choice. Protectionism increases prices for the consumer and it does not help people's living conditions or working standards.

The best way to achieve those goals is to have the type of environment that Bill C-21 produces, an environment of lower tariffs, freer trade and more opportunity.

Committees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

March 12th, 2004 / 12:05 p.m.
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Liberal

Marcel Proulx Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC

Mr. Speaker, I will be tabling two reports. First, I have the honour to present the ninth report of the Standing Committee of Procedure and House Affairs regarding the associate membership of certain committees of the House.

With leave of the House, I intend to move concurrence in the ninth report later this day.

Second, I have the honour to present the tenth report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs regarding its order of reference of Wednesday, February 18, regarding Bill C-3, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act.

The committee has considered Bill C-3 and has agreed to report it with amendments.

Democratic ReformStatements By Members

February 25th, 2004 / 2:10 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Ted White Canadian Alliance North Vancouver, BC

Mr. Speaker, the House sent Bill C-3 to committee before second reading because the Minister responsible for Democratic Reform led us to believe he wanted meaningful input on the legislation.

However, during my questioning of the minister at committee yesterday, he admitted that he had never bothered to contact any of the parties affected by the bill. Not only that, the minister also told us that nobody affected by the bill even knew that it had been introduced.

As if that was not bad enough, the minister used his Liberal members on the committee to block the appearance of any witnesses. Not even the Chief Electoral Officer, who must administer the bill, is allowed to attend.

We foolishly believed that the democratic reforms promised by the minister meant that things would be more democratic around this place. However, it is worse, much worse than it was under the previous minister. The new minister's reforms simply mean that now there is no democracy at all.

SupplyGovernment Orders

February 24th, 2004 / 4:55 p.m.
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Liberal

Roy Cullen Liberal Etobicoke North, ON

Madam Speaker, I congratulate the member for Winnipeg Centre for bringing this opposition day motion forward to the House of Commons. It is a good discussion to have.

What we are talking about is ethical or social investing as it relates to the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. The motion basically says that the board should be guided by ethical investment policies which would ensure that our pension investments are socially responsible.

We need to go back some years. If we look at the mid-1990s there was a lot of concern that the Canada pension plan was not viable, not actuarially sound, and our government undertook a whole series of consultations. As a result of that, a program was put in place to put the Canada pension plan on a much sounder footing. That included: changing the contribution rates; adjusting, to some extent, the benefits; and allowing the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board to invest, not only in fixed income securities but also to invest in equity investments.

What has been the result of all that? If we look at the actuarial report of December 2000, the actuary concluded that the legislative contribution rates, which were 9.4% in 2002 and 9.9% in 2003 and thereafter, were sufficient to pay for future expenditures and to accumulate assets of $142 billion by 2010. In 2050 the assets are projected to be $1.578 trillion, or 5.9 times the annual expenditures.

The actuary went on to say that under the current schedule of contribution rates, the funding level is expected to increase significantly over the next 20 years with a ratio of assets to the following years' expenditures growing from 2.4% in 2002 to 5.3% in 2020.

When Canadians approach me, and perhaps other members of the chamber, and ask if the Canada pension plan will be there for them and their children, because of the actions of our government in 1997, the actuary is saying yes, the Canada pension plan will be there for them. That is after taking into account the demographics where a much more elderly population will be emerging in Canada over the next few decades, but our Canada pension plan will be on a sound footing. To those who have worried about that, I think this gives a lot of relief.

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board is a board that manages, on behalf of contributors, the portfolio of assets under its administration. It is also comprised of representation from the provincial finance ministers, so it is a joint board that effectively is in the fiduciary capacity of managing these investments.

In the last session, Bill C-3, which was passed by the House, will allow the fixed income securities to be transferred from the federal government and put under the control of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

What have the results been of allowing the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board to get into managing both equities and fixed income securities? We do know that the equity markets went into the doldrums a few years ago and that the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board's portfolio was hit by the same sort of bad news on the stock markets. However if we look at the nine months ending December 31, 2003, we see that assets available to the Canada pension plan earned $8 billion, producing a rate of return of 13.9%. That is all CPP assets, including the $35 billion in fixed income securities currently administered by the government and subject to Bill C-3, which will transfer those securities under the control of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

During that same time period, the portfolio managed by the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board earned a return of 26%. If we look at the benchmarks against which the plan compares its performance against some of the standards in the industry, in 2003 we see that Canadian equities earned 17.3% and the benchmark was 17.5%. It was slightly lower there. In terms of non-Canadian equities, the benchmark was 28% and the actual was 27.6%. In real estate the benchmark was 9.2% and the investment fund actually had a rate of return of 50.7%. Overall, against the benchmarks, the performance exceeded the benchmarks of 20.3% return and it achieved a return of 21.1%.

Why is this relevant? Why is this important? This is important because this board has under its administration some $55 billion that is there earning income and providing benefits to Canadians, now and into the future. It is important the pension fund be sound and that it achieve a good return.

If the CPP is not there for Canadian citizens who retire in the future, they will be looking to the government for other types of support. This is a pension plan funded by employees and employers, so it is important that these trustee funds are managed in an optimal way.

I understand the point of the motion and I know the member for Winnipeg Centre has done some excellent work on this but I do have some difficulty with it.

First, we need to understand that the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board is mindful of ethical investing. It is guided by some of those principles and, from its experience, it knows that those companies that are committed to good labour relations, to a good, strong performance in human rights and to sustainable management in terms of the environment, will be the best investments to make in any case.

The problem I have with the specifics of the motion is when it states:

...investments are socially responsible and do not support companies or enterprises that manufacture or trade in military arms and weapons, have records of poor labour practices, contribute to environmental degradation, or whose conduct, practices or activities are similarly contrary to Canadian values.

Let us just look at the first part of that. That part of the motion says that any company that manufactures military equipment would not be eligible. I question that in the sense that we do know in this world, unfortunately, there is conflict. We do know that there are weapons produced. We do know that companies manufacture weapons. Is it not somewhat naive to say that an investment plan should not invest in companies that manufacture this type of equipment? However abhorrent we find war and conflict to be, this is the reality.

The motion goes on to state that companies with records of poor labour practices should also be excluded. I ask hon. members: Who will decide whether the labour practices are good or bad?

While it would be fair to say that some companies might have a reputation for having bad labour practices, if we could actually measure that, it is very much a judgmental thing. We have certain companies in certain sectors which have very strong unions and some very militant unions, and some companies have very militant management. We have sectors where the margins and profitability are very low so that management takes a very tough stance. We have unions with very strong membership and leadership that produce some very difficult demands in terms of allowing for the enterprise to be economic. Who decides that the company has a history of bad labour practices?

Who decides, when the motion talks about those companies contributing to environmental degradation, that a company has crossed a certain Rubicon, that they are not environmentally responsible?

Perhaps if we looked at every company in Canada or around the world, every company would be guilty at some point in time of having some slip-ups in the area of environmental management. Does that mean that they are contributing to environmental degradation? I suppose by strict definition it would.

Finally, the motion states that those companies should be excluded “whose conduct, practices or activities are...contrary to Canadian values”. Again, who decides that? I think it is very judgmental.

As I said, the board itself is guided by this type of thinking. For example, if a company is a clear violator of human rights and clearly has unfair employee practices, then in the obvious cases I think the board would be guided by that. When we get into this grey area where it would be open to debate and subjectivity, this is where I think the problems with this motion emerge.

There has been discussion about Talisman Energy Inc. and its work in Africa. Presumably Talisman would not be an ethical investment. Perhaps we in the House could all agree on that; I do not know. With the change of time, though, I would point out that what is good today might not have been good yesterday or vice versa. At one point in time, Nelson Mandela of South Africa was considered a terrorist. Now he is considered a hero.

Too, we have the question about tobacco. Should the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board invest in companies that produce tobacco? Again, we have this hypocritical notion, I might say, and I think we are all guilty of it: we tax tobacco very heavily, which we should do, but then we also allow tobacco to be produced, which gives Canadian citizens the right to choose freely. Could we actually say, then, that companies which produce tobacco---and we are saying in Canada that it is not a prohibited substance, so companies can produce it--would be unethical companies to invest in? It seems somewhat hypocritical to me. If we are going to say it is unethical and contrary to public values in Canada, then maybe we should outlaw tobacco, which I am not necessarily espousing here in the House.

These are the kinds of questions we have. Would we allow, then, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board to invest in companies that produce liquor? We know that alcohol produces a problem if used to excess.

What about those companies that manufacture birth control products or contraceptive products?

What about those companies that actually cut down trees? Maybe that would be unethical according to some.

Who decides these things?

What about the mining companies? They mine ore and provide jobs and are companies that act in a very responsible way.

While I understand the intent of the motion from the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre and the NDP, I think the motion is flawed.

I recall that some years ago when I worked in the forest sector we were trying to get the forest industry and the forest unions to invest in silviculture. The government then was facing deficits and there was not enough money to replant, so we embarked on an initiative to work with the companies in the industry and with the labour unions.

When we went to the labour unions, we said, “If everyone puts a little water into this vessel we can replant trees, with the industry putting in its share, the government putting in its share and the unions putting in their share”. What we ran up against was the fact that the unions rightly said, “We cannot accept a rate of return that would be less than an optimal rate of return. We owe it to the people. We are entrusted with these funds to earn the optimal return”.

I think that on behalf of Canadians this board is entrusted to earn an optimal return so that we can safeguard our future and our children's future and so that we can have a pension scheme and a retirement income scheme that Canadians can call upon when they retire.

While I believe the motion is well intentioned, I think it would be contrary to the best interests of Canadians who are contributing to the Canada pension plan. By taking this action, we would end up with returns that are less than optimal. It seems to me that all of us in the House should be fighting for those principles and those policies which will ensure that all Canadians have a decent retirement income scheme when that day comes for them. On that basis, I will be voting against the motion.

Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders

February 18th, 2004 / 4:35 p.m.
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Bloc

Paul Crête Bloc Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to this bill.

It might be well to remind those watching why there is a bill before us to amend the Elections Act. It is because a challenge was made before the Supreme Court to have political parties recognized even if they have fewer than 50 candidates.

To ensure a healthy and quality democracy that allows each person to express himself or herself appropriately, the court decided to give us, the legislators, one year to correct the situation. Since we are in the second part of an electoral term, these new provisions must be implemented as soon as possible. I hope that the bill will become law and enter into force, if possible, in time for the next election, or, if that is not technically possible, then compliance with the spirit might be possible in the next election.

It was a unanimous decision by the Supreme Court judges, who declared that it is unconstitutional to oblige political parties to nominate a minimum of 50 candidates in an election in order to be recognized as a registered party. In fact, what is the minimum number of candidates? That is the question the Supreme Court asked. The bill before us contemplates the minimum, providing that if there is one candidate, a party can be recognized. With that, it is believed that the new law will satisfy the requirements expressed by the Supreme Court.

Section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms should be understood with reference to the right of each citizen to play a meaningful role in the electoral process, rather than the election of a particular form of government. This definition takes into account the reasons for which individual participation in the electoral process is important, particularly respect for diverse opinions and the capacity of individuals to enhance democracy.

The bill seeks in some way to reinstate the conditions in place in the beginnings of democracy. When countries established democratic regimes, when the first experiments were taking place, people with differing opinions formed parties and this came to be the legislative machinery we have today. This is what underlies the ability of citizens to express their opinions and to select the person they want to represent them.

The Supreme Court has finally set us straight, so that any individual wishing to express an opinion may do so, through the political party of his or her choice, and not just through those political parties which enjoy sufficient visibility to field 50 candidates. The 50 candidate limit posed a problem to the Supreme Court, and the intent of this bill is to remedy the present situation.

The Court pointed out that political parties fielding fewer than 50 candidates also play a worthwhile role in the electoral process. It argued that a political party's ability to make a valuable contribution to the electoral process did not depend on its ability to constitute for the electorate a real alternative to the outgoing government. If anyone understands that, it is the members of the Bloc Quebecois.

Hon. members are aware of the contributions the Bloc Quebecois has made to this Parliament in the time we have been here. Over the past two years, people will have noted that we have raised the sponsorship issue more than 441 times. With each time, we have taken one more step toward the day we hope to finally get to get this matter completely out in the open. A political party like the Bloc Quebecois has no intention of assuming power in Canada. Our goal is to make Quebec a country. We have, however, made a worthwhile contribution in this Parliament.

Possibly other parties fielding fewer than 50 candidates could, during election campaign debates, at least, present interesting opinions, possibly those of the regions. Some parts of Canada might want to be represented by a party that fielded fewer than 50 candidates.

Let us think, for instance, of the Inuit population, or the inhabitants of the Canadian far north. They may not find themselves reflected in the federal political parties currently available. They might consider forming a political party. They do not, of course, have the interest or the capacity to round up more than 50 candidates, but they would still deserve to be represented in this House, and that is what the measure we are looking at now should make it possible for them to do.

The court stated further:

—[the right to vote] requires each citizen to have information to assess party platforms and the legislation undermines the right to information protected by s. 3.

It can therefore not be protected under section 1 of the Charter.

In other words, the court determined that, without the benefits available under the Elections Act, a party would find it difficult to propagate its political ideology. The idea is therefore to provide a level playing field where all can debate and have access to the financial tools they need to put their arguments across.

That is where the 50 candidate requirement infringes rights guaranteed under section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, by limiting the ability of members and supporters of parties disadvantaged by this requirement to express ideas and opinions in the context of public debates occasioned by the electoral process.

Basically, the court is saying that there must be healthy and fair competition, and anyone who wishes to run under whatever banner they want must be able to do so. It will be up to the people to decide who they want and do not want.

The court has given us one year to replace these provisions with requirements more consistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That is what the bill before us today is all about.

It is somewhat surprising for various bills relating to the Canada Elections Act to be rammed through. For example, the electoral map should come into force one year after it becomes official. Normally, this legislation should come into effect in August 2004, but this bill would allow the current Prime Minister to call an election, according to his agenda, as early as April 2004.

There is utter disregard for the principle that this legislation should not be subject to partisan applications. The government decided to move up the date the electoral map takes effect, and we are still waiting for this decision to come back from that other place.

However, the federal government's action runs somewhat counter to the spirit of the court's ruling with regard to the quality of democracy. In fact, if someone contested this part of the legislation, I am not certain that the court would not reach the same conclusions.

This bill contains a number of amendments. As I mentioned earlier, the obligation to endorse 50 candidates has been replaced by the obligation to support at least one candidate. A party must have at least 250 members who have provided a signed declaration that they are party members. In my opinion, an individual could be identified as a party in one riding and have at least 250 members in that riding alone.

There must be three party officers in addition to the party leader. One of the primary purposes of a registered party must be to participate in public affairs. Consequently, parties must stick strictly to politics.

Those parties that do not support a single candidate during a general election will be automatically de-registered. This will eliminate charlatans or situations where people create fake parties, but do not endorse any candidates, which would be absurd.

The bill also provides for the de-registration of those parties that do not comply with the new requirements and for the remittance of moneys illegally collected. Today, we realize how important such a provision can be. It applies to small parties, but it also applies to major parties. One only has to look at the current situation with the Liberal Party of Canada.

The bill also creates offences relating to the provision of false or misleading information, and a person's acting as leader of a party when the person knows that the party does not comply with the requirements set in the definition of a political party.

So, unlike the example that I gave earlier, where partisanship was a factor in the date of implementation of the electoral map, this bill will improve the Canada Elections Act. We support the principle that underlies Bill C-3, because it should benefit small political parties.

I will conclude by saying that we will have to pay particular attention to the inclusion of the definition of a “political party” in the Canada Elections Act. According to this definition a political party means an organization one of whose fundamental purposes is to participate in public affairs. We will have to know what the expression “to participate in public affairs” means in concrete terms.

So, I think that we have before us a bill which will comply with the Supreme Court ruling, and with the charters and will further promote the democratic process in Canada.

The Bloc Quebecois has always been in favour of promoting a significant democratic debate. While it laments the fact that it does not have enough candidates to run the country, it is still making a significant contribution to the democratic process. This is a good opportunity to also give that chance to other groups that may wish to become political parties without necessarily having 50 candidates.

Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders

February 18th, 2004 / 4:25 p.m.
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Bloc

Benoît Sauvageau Bloc Repentigny, QC

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak on Bill C-3, to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act.

Our party whip, the member for Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île-d'Orléans spoke eloquently, as did my colleague from Rimouski--Neigette-et-la Mitis who was very informative about the scope of these legislative amendments—and the Prime Minister will like this—to compensate for the lack of democracy in this country.

People talk about democratic imbalance. In my opinion, this bill seeks to amend—and I see that the President of the Treasury Board fully agrees with me—this democratic deficit, although I said imbalance.

Unfortunately, it is different for certain groups with very specific ideas on a particular subject. We need only think of the Green Party which, in those ridings where it is active, promotes ideas that perhaps some find a bit utopian.

However, these ideas need a framework and can be presented in a democratic framework so as to contribute to democratic debate. An idea can seem far-fetched during a particular period in our political or historic evolution, but then lead to bills, philosophies and very interesting policy directions.

Consequently, I believe that it is important to make it easier for political parties to exist so they can present their ideas to the public, thereby improving the democratic process and participation in the democratic process.

In election after election, voter turnout—and directly, the interest level—drops. Such modest measures may encourage the interest of more marginal groups that have important and interesting ideas to bring to the public debate during an election campaign.

Perhaps we will have groups of individuals who will, in different provinces, join forces to address the issue of government spending. The Green Party focused on the environment, but perhaps there will be a party focusing on government spending. I am thinking, in particular, of the $2 billion wasted on the firearms registry.

Then there is the $100 million wasted on two planes. And the talk of another $1 billion wasted at Human Resources Development. The minister has dissociated himself from that department in order to sidestep any questions. There is the $250 million sponsorship scandal. Maybe we will have groups created specifically to address this aspect.

The democratic deficit is directly linked to confidence in our elected representatives. Unfortunately—and this is a message for our Liberal colleagues—their reputations are being blackened by the sponsorship scandal, but so is the reputation of politicians as a group.

What are we hearing in all the various public forums? “Well, there you go. We all know that's what politicians are like”. Yet the scandal is on only one side of this House, the Liberal side, but it has sullied the political reputations of the members of the Bloc Quebecois, the Conservatives and the NDP. What is more, it is spreading to include the reputations of politicians in the provincial legislatures or the Quebec National Assembly.

The democratic deficit is directly connected to trust, which the government has shunted aside far too long ago, in order to look out for its friends. It has managed to pull off quite the little money laundering scam.

One wonders what would have happened if all these efforts had been put towards measures to help the disadvantaged. Not all public servants were involved; on that I agree with the Auditor General. It was a small group. What would have happened if the efforts of the political staff, the ministers, the deputy ministers, all the people involved, had been put towards helping seasonal workers find jobs, instead of camouflaging financial transactions in order to funnel money into riding trust accounts or the Liberal Party's coffers?

These efforts and funds ought to have been put toward helping the homeless find affordable and slightly more accessible housing. All the effort that has gone into hiding money from the taxpayers and the Auditor General should have gone into helping the disadvantaged deprived of the guaranteed income supplement.

I think that efforts have been made, but that they were misdirected and took the form of wrongdoing. Had they been channeled toward more noble goals, we would have a more equitable society today. Fewer political parties could be established under Bill C-3. People would have greater confidence in the political system, which means that participation in the electoral or political process would be encouraged and Bill C-3, which is important in our community and our political reality, would probably become less useful or necessary, so to speak.

I welcome the opportunity provided by Bill C-3 to amend the Elections Act to comment briefly on the matter. Another amendment to the legislation concerns the electoral boundaries readjustment. At present, the riding of Repentigny is made up of five municipalities, three of which—Lachenaie, Mascouche and La Plaine—will be attached to a different riding under the new legislation that is likely to take effect on April 1.

I would like to take the opportunity that comes with discussing a bill to amend the Elections Act, to tell mayors, city councillors, journalists, stakeholders and people of influence in these municipalities, before the electoral boundaries are redefined, what a great pleasure and privilege it has been to represent them for more than 10 years, from 1993 to the present. It has been a great privilege for me to get to know them and to work with them on developing lasting projects that will benefit the public. It was a great privilege to work with people who are dynamic, very much in the know, and involved in their community.

I would like to take the opportunity that comes with this bill to amend the Elections Act, to say hello to these people. My heart will always be with them. My colleague from Berthier—Montcalm, who will replace me—we are very optimistic about the election—will represent them very well.

To come back to Bill C-3, as my colleague from Rimouski--Neigette-et-la Mitis said, the Bloc Quebecois agrees with this bill for improving democracy. We also agree with checking whether the proposed amendments are consistent with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The requirement to have at least one candidate in an election seems quite obvious to me. If a political party is created, there has to be a candidate. This is at least logical, if not consistent with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In other words, to be present in an election campaign, a party must have at least one candidate.

There also have to be 250 members who have signed a statement declaring their membership in the party. I believe that is the minimum requirement to have representation. It is not a question of two or three friends talking one day and deciding they will form a party. There needs to be a basic structure.

There need to be three officers of the party, three officials who will be in charge of issuing tax receipts or handling financial aspects to allow the political party to grow and convey its ideas. It is for that reason we must ensure that the bill is carefully worded and that democracy is even more vibrant in this country.

Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders

February 18th, 2004 / 4:05 p.m.
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Bloc

Jean-Yves Roy Bloc Matapédia—Matane, QC

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate on the bill before the House. In fact, this concerns the referral to committee of Bill C-3, to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act.

Obviously, we agree with the underlying principle of the bill, which is to amend the Canada Elections Act to recognize small political parties. We must make a distinction here between a registered political party and a party recognized in the House, as my colleague from Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île-d'Orléans mentioned earlier. Previously under the Canada Elections Act, as the Supreme Court ruling stated, a party had to endorse a minimum of 50 candidates during a general election in order to be a registered political party.

This was extremely difficult for small political parties. For example, a new political party had to endorse 50 candidates, have at least 50 ridings with a candidate, who, in my opinion, had few means to make their ideas heard. This presented various difficulties in many ridings.

We agree with the amendments to the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act recommended by the Supreme Court. Naturally, we agree with the principle underlying this bill. Various things will have to be clarified to ensure that a political party is defined. This will require careful attention. What does political party mean? What does it mean in practical terms?

A clear and precise definition is required. That is why this bill must be considered in committee and amended if need be. We need and must agree on a real definition, in order to prevent organizations—I will not mention any names—without any interest in public affairs from being recognized as political parties and benefiting from tax credits normally given to political parties.

This also gives us an opportunity to talk about what democracy is. In the Bloc Quebecois, we had adopted the tradition promoted by the Parti quebecois during the 1970s concerning electoral legislation. We set ourselves the objective of getting the most people possible involved. It was our true and clear intention to recruit many members in order to enable the population as a whole to express itself at all levels of the party, from the local to the national levels in Quebec.

Over the years, I believe the Bloc Quebecois has achieved that objective. First of all, the Bloc banked on the public funding of a political party. As well, it has defended in the House, pretty much consistently, the changes required to the Elections Act, so that, among other things, corporate contributions to political parties would now be banned.

Finally, this past year, after a great many years of major debates, the Bloc Quebecois succeeded in having federal politics cleaned up, as Mr. Lévesque had done in Quebec. This is very important, because this kind of approach made it possible to improve Quebec politics and will, I hope, have the same effect on federal politics.

With all that is going on, and has gone on, we are still far from the objective of this new law. I hope we will be able to solve this problem at the federal political level. This past week, with all of its focus on sponsorships, we were hearing that this was how politics works in Quebec. A statement like that is totally false.

We know very well that politics in Quebec have been cleaned up since the 1970s, and such things could never have happened under our present electoral legislation. Our elections act was brought in by the Parti quebecois and has been upheld by subsequent governments. It has the approval of the National Assembly and of the people of Quebec.

When we hear such statements, we know they are totally unacceptable. A person would really have to be lacking in judgment and knowledge to say such things.

That also gives us the opportunity to say that in order for our democracy to exist and flourish, it is necessary that the public be able to participate. Of course, if more opportunities are opened up for the creation of political parties that will defend different opinions and different ideals, that can only be healthy for democracy, because it will encourage more citizens to participate in democratic life.

Considering the recent history of general elections, we see that there has been a gradual disaffection of the citizens with politics, particularly federal politics, if we look at the percentages of people who bother to get out and vote.

At present, there is a danger in letting things slide, making it easy for citizens not to be involved in or committed to a political party or even politics in general. If we want democracy to continue to exist and flourish and have the effects we all hope it will have, it is essential that the majority of people go to the bother of voting and participating in our democracy. In a democracy, the usual method of participating and sharing ideas involves political parties.

We are in favour of an amendment to the bill. In any event, the Supreme Court gives the government no choice. The Elections Act has to be amended and so does the Income Tax Act so that political parties wanting to register are able to sell memberships and collect contributions. All this will be done within the new framework established following much debate and the Bloc Quebecois' incessant demands that federal government politics be cleaned up.

The Supreme Court gave the government one year to achieve this objective. At the end of that year, the need to present 50 candidates will be eliminated. From the Supreme Court ruling to the end of the one-year deadline, the bill has to be adopted and the necessary changes made. It is absolutely imperative that through this bill, we give small political parties every opportunity to form and express their points of view and ideas.

Naturally, several changes have been proposed by the government. We probably will not agree with all the changes presented and I think that is normal, but they have to be closely examined in committee.

For instance, we are told that for a party to be formed, it needs at least 250 members who have signed a statement declaring their membership in the party. That is the minimum. To create and register a party, to have it prosper and to have candidates in each riding, a membership of 250 is not much. We should perhaps reconsider this requirement to ensure that the political party is serious about registering. Our democracy needs to benefit from this. Contrary to what might happen, democracy must not be ridiculed, but applied properly. The public must be able to take part in it.

Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders

February 18th, 2004 / 3:45 p.m.
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Bloc

Michel Guimond Bloc Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-De- Beaupré—Île-D'Orléans, QC

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak on this bill, which is in response to the Supreme Court decision in the Figueroa case.

As we know, Mr. Figueroa is the leader of the Communist Party of Canada and he testified before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs in the previous session of this Parliament, during the November 7 recess. Clearly, this bill needed to be reinstated as Bill C-3.

We will recall that, in that case, the Canada Elections Act was challenged by Mr. Figueroa. In 1993, the Communist Party of Canada lost its status as a registered party because it failed to nominate the required number of candidates. To be recognized under the Elections Act and by the Chief Electoral Officer, the parties must nominate at least 50 candidates. That is how it used to be. Mr. Figueroa challenged this decision all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled in his favour, stating that the 50 candidate requirement for political party registration was unconstitutional.

This meant that a party could be recognized regardless of the number of candidates nominated, even just a single one. This means that a party could nominate a single candidate, and the Chief Electoral Officer would have no choice but to register the party and recognize it as a registered party.

The legal argument used by Mr. Figueroa, which the Supreme Court accepted, was that this 50 candidate threshold was in violation of section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees the right to vote, among other things. The court ruled that the 50 candidate requirement was putting a restriction on the right to vote and, to a certain extent, on the development of smaller parties.

Members know that, in law, discriminatory rules may be imposed, but one of the tests the Supreme Court uses is to determine whether this element of discrimination is acceptable in a free and democratic society. This test is applied in many areas.

Without giving a lot of examples, I will mention the standards set for the height of an airline pilot. This issue has been legally tested. For safety reasons, someone too small or too big for the cockpit layout could not do the work of a pilot. For instance, someone who was 7 feet, 4 inches tall—my children still get after me for talking in feet and inches—was rejected because a cockpit is designed with a certain minimum and maximum in mind. Clearly, a person who is too far from the controls cannot operate the aircraft.

The company was, in effect, discriminating, but the issue was to determine whether that discrimination was justified or not in a free and democratic society. In the case of the Elections Act, the number of 50 candidates has been judged unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court has told us that section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms must be interpreted rather broadly. Section 3, which guarantees certain rights, particularly the right to vote, is interpreted with reference to the right of each citizen to play a meaningful role in the electoral process, rather than the election of a particular form of government.

This definition takes into account the reasons why individual participation in the electoral process is important, in particular, respect for diversity of opinions and the ability of each person to strengthen the quality of the democracy.

A little while ago, I heard the leader of the government tell the House that it was important to do something about the democratic deficit and I made a comment to the hon. member for Rimouski--Neigette-et-la Mitis, because we know that this is the government's new hobby horse. Ever since the events of September 11, September 11 has been the excuse for everything. Everything was a pretext to deprive people of certain rights—because of September 11.

This government has found a new hobby horse, namely that now we must fix the democratic deficit. Unfortunately the government does not always walk the way it talks, and the same old Liberal methods we have known for decades often still prevail.

The court also said that the members and supporters of political parties presenting fewer than 50 candidates meaningfully participate in the electoral process. The court held that the ability of a party to make a valuable contribution is not dependent upon its capacity to offer the electorate a genuine government option.

In committee, several experts suggested that perhaps the issue of 50 candidates being deemed unconstitutional should be appealed. We cannot appeal to the Supreme Court, but perhaps we could have another recourse to ensure that a number, such as the number one, is not considered valid.

Many people have told us that we should consider the possibility of recognizing a party that presents at least 12 candidates. I remember asking certain academics, “Why the rule of 12?” The professors of administrative law and constitutional law pointed out that to have official party status in this House, the rule had been set at 12 members. Consequently, the rule should be the same for the number of candidates nominated.

However, I would like to point out that I am completely against this parallel. A distinction needs to be made with the rules inside the House for recognizing a party with respect to parliamentary proceedings and debates. Short of 12, the party is considered independent or a group of independent MPs.

This happened to the Bloc when the party was being formed. I believe the highest number of Bloc representatives in the 1990s was 9 or 10 members. They were considered a group of independent members.

Consequently, the rule of 12 should not be placed in the context of the number required for official party status in the House, in order to be accepted by the chief electoral officer.

In conclusion, I would add that we agree with the principle behind Bill C-3. We feel that the bill creates new measures for promoting the registration of entities as political parties.

We also think that we must pay particular attention to the addition of a definition of political party in the Canada Elections Act suggesting that the primary objective of a political party should be to participate in public affairs. We need to know what exactly is meant by “participate in public affairs”.

We will be resuming work in the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs on this matter, and may decide to hear from other witnesses. Nonetheless, at this stage, we agree with the principle of the bill.

Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders

February 18th, 2004 / 3:40 p.m.
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Canadian Alliance

Deepak Obhrai Canadian Alliance Calgary East, AB

Madam Speaker, first let me congratulate you on taking on the position of Assistant Deputy Chair.

When we first debated this bill in the House, this party, the former Canadian Alliance, expressed surprise that the government, despite all its resources of lawyers and bureaucrats, attempted to go through the process of changing the 50 party rule. Everybody here knew that it would not pass through the Supreme Court of Canada. We all understood that.

We are still baffled as to why a government, with such resources, would try to ram through such legislation. This is a democracy and political parties are the essence of a democracy. One would think that the government would allow a wide open area where people could, through their political parties, express whatever points of view they had. That is the essence of democracy; however, to bring in this 50 party rule is muzzling dissident opinion.

We pointed this out on many occasions. The member from Vancouver who studied this bill at length with other party members and even our former party, the PC Party, came up with the 12 person rule. This is a more reasonable figure. It allows for the concerns that the government House leader just expressed about the fraudulent use of special interest groups trying to take advantage of the bill that his government introduced recently.

A 12 person rule would have been sufficient. I am sure that if this proposal had gone to the Supreme Court of Canada, it would have agreed to the 12 person rule. Now the government has received a big slap on the hands and it is one person rule. The government is now scrambling and running to do damage control.

It is interesting to hear the government House leader say that it will return to the Supreme Court for an extension of this June 2004 rule. I do not understand that. We have debated this in the House. It is going to the committee and there is no need for an extension. The Supreme Court of Canada has already ruled, so let us go ahead and finish this issue of registration of parties.

He mentioned that there were two pillars to this bill: party registration and anti-abuse measures. Anti-abuse provisions are quite important in any legislation that is put forward. If there were no anti-abuse provisions in a piece of legislation, one would wonder how one would implement those laws.

There are new stringent rules in Bill C-3 coming into play during election campaigns. These came into effect January 1. Nomination and founding meetings of all parties, including ours and the Liberal Party, are all subject to Bill C-3 before the election campaign begins. There are a lot of candidates and people who do not understand the provisions of Bill C-3, including people in my own riding where the nomination meeting took place last week.

I would hope that Elections Canada, which is responsible under this provision, will take these anti-abuse provisions seriously. Without that, there is no point in making bills. There is no point if Elections Canada will not take the complaints that will be coming to it seriously. If it does not, then the whole essence of the bill and what Parliament intended to do falls through the cracks.

I am hoping that Elections Canada will not pass the buck because it does not have the resources to implement the will of Parliament in this case.

Coming back to the anti-abuse provision, I think we have an agreement. I will say that the government is worried to some degree about the abuse. We are all worried about the abuse. We will look at it in committee in order to bring improvements to this, see how we can tighten the anti-abuse provision, and at the same time maintain the essence of democracy, which embodies the free opinions of Canadians.

Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders

February 18th, 2004 / 3:30 p.m.
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Liberal

Jacques Saada Liberal Brossard—La Prairie, QC

Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure of opening this debate on referral of Bill C-3, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act, to a committee before second reading.

As hon. members are aware, the Supreme Court of Canada handed down its ruling in the Figueroa case last June, thereby throwing into question some of the key aspects of the Canada Elections Act relating to the registration of political parties.

Moreover, the court suspended application of its decision for one year, that is until June 27, 2004. Bill C-3 represents the government's proposed response to the immediate consequences of the Figueroa ruling.

This bill does not, however, necessarily constitute a permanent solution. The Figueroa ruling is highly complex, and a more thorough study of its impact is required. This is why I have written to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to encourage a broader examination of the Canada Elections Act.

I have asked the committee, moreover, to present all of its recommendations in the form of a draft bill, within a year's time. This is a concrete example of application of our democratic reform.

Bill C-3 is a very slightly modified version of Bill C-51 which was introduced in the last session of Parliament. It is imperative to reintroduce the bill in order to respond to the Supreme Court ruling within the timeframe provided by the court.

I will summarize the findings in Figueroa if I may, and then will set out the main thrust of Bill C-3.

In the Figueroa case, the Supreme Court declared that the 50 candidate rule for party registration was unconstitutional. It concluded that the 50 candidate rule as a condition for access to these benefits was incompatible with the right to vote, which is guaranteed under section 3 of the Charter.

In the court's view, the rule's impact on small parties infringed the right to meaningful participation in the electoral process. The court also ruled that this restriction on section 3 rights could not be justified under section 1 of the charter.

However, the court suspended the effect of its ruling until June 27, 2004. In other words, if no changes are made to the law before that date, the 50 candidate rule will cease to apply. This will leave a major void in the law if nothing else is put in to replace it.

As a result, any group whatsoever could readily register as a political party and take advantage of the tax benefits designed for real political parties.

This is the reason we must take action to ensure that the Canada Elections Act remains in effect after June 27, 2004.

Removing the 50 candidate threshold may result in a great number of groups calling themselves parties seeking registration simply to issue tax credits and access other benefits. Not only is this objectionable as a matter of principle, but it could well have a considerable fiscal impact. We need to address this concern in order to ensure that our fiscal regime is not vulnerable to abuse.

Not legislating to comply with the court's decision could well mean that further recourse to the courts will be necessary.

First, the government would likely have to apply to the Supreme Court to request an extension of the suspension period beyond the June 27, 2004 deadline. There is no guarantee this extension would be granted.

Alternatively, the courts may have to provide guidance to the Chief Electoral Officer on the applicable rules from that date forward.

In any event, the absence of a timely legislative response would create uncertainty as to the rules for party registration.

It is therefore incumbent upon us to do everything possible to protect the integrity of the electoral system.

The bill consists of two key pillars: party registration and accountability provisions, as well as a series of anti-abuse measures.

Based on the Supreme Court decision eliminating the 50-candidate threshold, Bill C-3 will now require parties to endorse at least one candidate. The bill also adds new registration requirements and other measures to ensure that parties seeking to register are legitimate parties.

For the first time, the bill adds a definition of “political party”. For example, one of the main purposes of a party should be to participate in public affairs by endorsing and supporting at least one of its members as a candidate.

Second, each party must have a minimum of 250 members, up from 100, and 250 members shall be required to sign declarations stating that they are members of the party and that they support its registration. Three party officers, in addition to the party leader, shall provide their signed consent to act.

From now on, the parties will be able to register during by-elections. Naturally, if one party does not put forward at least one candidate during a general election, that party will be automatically de-registered.

The second key pillar of the proposed legislation is a series of anti-abuse measures directed toward screening out fraudulent parties and protecting the integrity of the electoral financing regime.

For instance, the bill includes a new false statement offence for knowingly making false statements in relation to the registration of a party. Parties would be forbidden to solicit or receive contributions simply for the purpose of redirecting them to a related third party entity.

In addition to potential de-registration of parties, party officers could be held civilly liable if convicted of offences related to or leading to financial abuses and they could be ordered to make restitution to the public purse.

The bill would increase the powers of the Commissioner of Elections Canada to ensure enforcement and compliance under the act.

I would also like to briefly mention two technical amendments to the bill.

First, we eliminated a reference to January 1, 2004, and changed the date the bill comes into force, given the June 27, 2004, deadline.

Second, we are making a minor amendment to ensure that party officers can continue to act while an application for voluntary de-registration is pending.

As I mentioned earlier, it is incumbent upon us to study the broader impacts of the federal decision. For example, is the ruling likely to affect other benefits in the Canada Elections Act such as party and candidate reimbursements or the allocation of broadcasting time?

Finally, I would like to address the timeframe and the date on which the bill would come into force. Normally, amendments to the Canada Elections Act come into force six months after Royal Assent is given, or earlier if the chief electoral officer publishes the bill along with a notice to the effect that all the necessary preparations have been completed.

However, given the Supreme Court deadline, the bill would come into force on June 27, 2004, rather than after the standard six-month waiting period, unless the chief electoral officer announces it is ready earlier.

Furthermore, there is a six-month transition period for currently registered parties.

There has been a solid tradition of all parties working together on electoral legislation. I know that the work that will be done on this legislation will be no exception.

While we have to move quickly to address the Supreme Court's ruling, the government recognizes that the work of the committee is essential. That is why the bill and the request for the committee to undertake a broader review go hand in hand.

Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders

February 18th, 2004 / 3:30 p.m.
See context

Ottawa—Vanier Ontario

Liberal

Mauril Bélanger LiberalDeputy Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, discussions have taken place between all parties and I believe that if you were to seek it you would find consent that when the question is put later today on the motion to refer Bill C-3 to committee before second reading, that the motion be deemed carried on division.

Canada Elections ActGovernment Orders

February 18th, 2004 / 3:30 p.m.
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Brossard—La Prairie Québec

Liberal

Jacques Saada LiberalLeader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister responsible for Democratic Reform

moved:

That Bill C-3, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act, be referred forthwith to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

Motions for PapersRoutine Proceedings

February 18th, 2004 / 3:25 p.m.
See context

Some hon. members

Agreed.

(Bill C-3. On the Order: Government Orders)

February 18, 2004—the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister responsible for Democratic Reform—Second reading and reference to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs of Bill C-3, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act.

Business of the HouseOral Question Period

February 12th, 2004 / 3:10 p.m.
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Brossard—La Prairie Québec

Liberal

Jacques Saada LiberalLeader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister responsible for Democratic Reform

Mr. Speaker, I will answer in the reverse order of the questions raised. To my knowledge, there are many precedents in this House of emergency or take note debates being held on opposition days.

Therefore, I gave some thought to the question that was put to me. I am pleased to see that the hon. member opposite is as aware as I am of the fact that we work later in the evening. We will indeed have this take note debate and, after thinking about his proposal, I must unfortunately confirm to him that this take note debate will take place on Tuesday, February 17, as planned.

As for the hon. member's first question, this afternoon, we will continue with the debate on the address. Tomorrow, we will conclude our review of Bill C-2, the Radiocommunication Act, which will be followed by a motion for the referral to a committee, before second reading, of the equalization bill that was tabled this morning.

Monday shall be the final day for the address debate.

Tuesday shall be an allotted day, and of course followed by what we just said, on Tuesday evening we will have a take note debate on the ballistic missile defence issue.

On Wednesday we will consider a motion to refer to committee before second reading Bill C-3 respecting the Canada Elections Act.

Next Thursday shall be an allotted day.

Therefore, pursuant to Standing Order 53.1, I move:

That a take note debate on the subject of ballistic missile defence take place pursuant to Standing Order 53.1 on Tuesday, February 17, 2004.

Canada Elections ActRoutine Proceedings

February 10th, 2004 / 10 a.m.
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Brossard—La Prairie Québec

Liberal

Jacques Saada LiberalLeader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister responsible for Democratic Reform

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-3, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)