Bill C-16 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act

This enactment amends the Canada Elections Act to provide that, subject to an earlier dissolution of Parliament, a general election must be held on the third Monday in October in the fourth calendar year following polling day for the last general election, with the first general election after this enactment comes into force being held on Monday, October 19, 2009.
The enactment also provides that the Chief Electoral Officer may recommend an alternate day if the day set for polling is not suitable.

Speaker's Ruling

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the previous question, although it is very important and I can speak with considerable insight into that issue from my own past experience, is not part of this bill.

My hon. colleague commented earlier that she thinks a constitutional amendment would be required for this bill to work. I am curious about what leads her to draw that conclusion.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if we were going to decouple the Governor General acting on the advice of the Prime Minister, we would need a constitutional amendment to do it. That would be the only substantive way in which we could be locked into this four year, predictable election, very much like the Republican model that exists in the United States. I often lament that when Canadians talk about electoral reform we look at cherry-picking from one system to the other. Clearly we are the Westminster model. It is a parliamentary party system. As such, I do not think we can do these one-offs. This, I think, looks very much like what the United States has.

Again, I do not believe that confidence should be defined anywhere. I believe it is the prerogative of the government to define it. It always has been. We ought not to lightly change traditions that have served this country very well democratically for our entire history.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I sat on the committee with the hon. chief opposition whip. I am glad to hear that her comments reflect what I thought was a reasonably high degree of consensus on the goals of this particular piece of legislation.

She made reference in her commentary to our experience in Ontario--and I suspect there are other provinces that are the same--with municipal elections that have fixed dates and low levels of voter turnout, and she suggested that it might mean that a fixed election date will not produce a higher turnout. I would just point out a couple of considerations which I think suggest that is not correct.

One thing is that in Ontario, particularly in a rural area like mine, property owners who own cottages, for example, are on the electors roll. Often they cannot vote because elections are held when they are back in Toronto or wherever and not in the municipality, so that tends to produce a lower overall voter turnout.

However, I am wondering if she will agree with me on this. If the Chief Electoral Officer took the opportunity to focus on extra enumerations, particularly in areas such as student areas around universities where we find there is lower turnout, would that not help produce a higher voter turnout? And would he not be aided in that process by the fact that he would know when these enumerations could occur?

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know that it is just a problem of better accounting, but I thank my hon. colleague for those suggestions. Perhaps that is something which will reflect a more accurate accounting.

I was actually reflecting on my riding of Kitchener Centre, which is totally urban. It has some student population, but not as much as there is around the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University.

A week from today, Ontario will have municipal elections. I spent six years as a public school trustee. I spent a term sitting as a regional councillor. I will say emphatically that trustees and councillors deal with issues that are absolutely key to the quality of life and the character of communities, yet the voter turnout is very low.

I made the comment based on the fact that I do not think one can assume that if we fix election dates there will be higher voter turnout. If we fix flexible election dates, educate students and have a full court press in trying to get people out, I think that might help, but I do not think that this in and of itself is necessarily going to raise voter turnout.

We looked at very interesting models in New Zealand and Australia. In Australia, it is mandatory to vote. I do not know of a modern democracy that has gone that route in the last 100 years, but I wonder if we would start talking about substantive issues, instead of just trying to get our vote out, if we knew that every Canadian of voting age would be fined if they did not come out to vote.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-16, which amends the Canada Elections Act, primarily to establish fixed election dates.

Just as I did at the previous stage, I would like to make it clear, from the outset, that the Bloc Québécois is in favour of Bill C-16, despite the fact that it does have certain flaws and of course requires some improvement. Accordingly, we, the Bloc Québécois, proposed certain changes in committee. Unfortunately, they were defeated by the majority of the committee members. The Bloc Québécois believes that, with this bill, Canada joins other democratic countries around the world that have adopted such a principle, particularly, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Switzerland, Luxembourg and the United States.

Within Canada, three provinces already have fixed election dates, namely, Ontario, Newfoundland and British Columbia. I believe British Columbia is the province with the greatest expertise, since it has been conducting elections this way the longest. During a committee meeting, via video conferencing, we had the opportunity to hear from the Assistant Chief Electoral Officer in British Columbia, who told us about that province's experiences in that regard.

In Quebec, elections have been held on fixed dates at the municipal level for a number of years and this principle has not reduced either the accountability of elected officials or democracy itself. Although some questions remain regarding the actual wording of the bill, its main advantage is to eliminate the prerogative of the party in power to call an election at the most politically opportune time.

Thus, to some degree, no matter the prevailing situation, the economy, the strength of the party in power or of the party in opposition, the internal dissension in a party—no matter the external circumstances—elections will now be held on fixed dates.

This will prevent the reoccurrence of what happened with the 1997, 2000 and 2004 elections, when the Liberals were in power—the Liberals of Jean Chrétien as well as of the current member for LaSalle—Émard, who I will not name as he has not yet quit his seat, but you know who I am referring to—and the prime minister exercised this prerogative in order to call an election in what I could call a meanspirited act, as I will explain.

On March 15, 1997, the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie, the current Bloc Québécois leader, was elected leader of the party; former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien called the elections on June 2, 1997.

On July 8, 2000, the current Minister of Public Safety was elected as the leader of the Canadian Alliance, as it was known at the time. We know that this party had an identity crisis and changed names a few times. There was the Reform Party and the Canadian Alliance. The ideology of the party was somewhat fuzzy making it difficult to know the name of the party.

A certain split occurred under the leadership of that member, the current Minister of Public Safety. A dozen members left the ranks of the Canadian Alliance to rejoin the Progressive Conservative Party led by former prime minister Joe Clark.

Ideologically speaking, there was some fuzziness. That atmosphere of internal division and tension prompted then Prime Minister Jean Chrétien to call an election for November 27, 2000. Later, on March 20, 2004, the current Prime Minister was elected leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. Another election took place June 28, 2004.

Thanks to fixed date elections, whoever is prime minister will no longer be able to take advantage of divisions or disorganization in the ranks of opposition parties. That would give him an unfair, if not unjust, advantage over the other parties. We will see what happens in practice.

In committee, my colleagues from other parties and I had some questions about whether this bill, as it is written, would not open the door to some type of prerogative, despite a fixed election date.

The bill indicates that in exceptional circumstances or in extraordinary circumstances, the prime minister could decide to call an election. The notion of exceptional or extraordinary circumstances is necessarily subjective. Indeed, what is exceptional to me could be quite normal for someone else. What is extraordinary for one person could be out of the ordinary, but not necessarily extraordinary, for another. Although this does not lessen our support for this bill, we must be prudent and consider some modification.

In future, elections will be predictable. That will enable more rational governance. Members of parliamentary committees will henceforth be able to set their agendas in advance, which will make the work of committees and of Parliament more efficient; at least, we dare to hope so.

In terms of predictable elections, this bill offers a clear benefit. Elections Canada will be in a better position to prepare its work. That will also make it possible to reduce the length of election campaigns. Elections Canada will be able to begin its preparations by counting backwards. Since the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, Mr. Kingsley, will know the date of the election, he will be able to carry out all the preparatory steps necessary for holding the general election.

As part of my duties within the Bloc Québécois, I gathered reports of all the problems that arose in the last election and even those in the 2004 vote. In certain ridings, totally incompetent and unprepared returning officers provided us with some horror stories that would make the hair on your head stand up.

With all due respect, Mr. Speaker, the hair may stand up on your head, but not for long and not so high as on my head, I admit. I say that to you as a friend, since you have a little hair, but it will not necessarily be the hair on top of your head that will stand up; it will be mainly the hair on the sides of your head.

These horror stories damage the credibility of the electoral process by which we democratically choose who will represent us.

From now on Elections Canada can prepare itself accordingly.

We also hope, with this bill, that there will be better voter turnout, that advertising around a fixed date election may foster improved turnout. I am talking about all advertising coordinated by the Chief Electoral Officer among certain target groups, such as young people, who do not vote much in any elections and who, in some instances, have no interest in politics.

Speaking of voter turnout, I must recall the point of the amendment that the Bloc Québécois tabled concerning the date.

We know that Bill C-16 provides for elections on the third Monday of October. Right from the start I am sure that the cabinet of the parliamentary leader of the government carefully examined all the calendars. Apparently that date does not conflict with any religious holidays or other holidays that might lower the participation rate. That is all right, but there is an event in Canada and Quebec, Thanksgiving, which is always on the second Monday of October—until the end of time. It is statutory. Let us look at a calendar.

I came close to selecting the year 2050 so as to have a date as far away as possible, but that is exactly the same year the government plans to begin dealing with greenhouse gas emissions. Imagine how far away that is. So this shows that the government’s green plan is totally unrealistic and ill-adapted, but you could invoke the irrelevance of my remarks, Mr. Speaker, and before you get ready to do so, I will get back to the point.

If we consult the calendar for 2050, we see that the Thanksgiving holiday will be on the second Monday in October. But, in a vote held the third Monday of October, the previous weekend is reserved for the advance poll.

We, the Bloc Québécois, have suggested that the Thanksgiving weekend is one of the last nice weekends of the year, which is why people often plan to close up the cottage then. It is one of the last long weekends before winter, and people who have family in the regions can take advantage of it to celebrate Thanksgiving with the family, go eat turkey and so on, because there is still no snow on the ground in most parts of Canada. Of course, we sometimes get storms in mid-October, but typically the weather is still pretty nice. This is why we think that holding an advance poll during the Thanksgiving weekend does not encourage a very high turnout. I do not think elections have ever been held that particular weekend.

This is why we, the Bloc Québécois, have given the matter some thought and have suggested that the first Monday in May would be a more appropriate date.

I would not want to cause any doubt by saying this. We support Bill C-16 as written, but I still want to explain why the Bloc Québécois prefers the date it does. Unlike Thanksgiving, Easter does not occur on a set date. It sometimes happens at the end of March, and sometimes in April—even as late as the end of April. We only checked for the next 15 years, but 11 years from now, that is, once in the next 15 years, the advance poll would take place during the Easter weekend.

In all honesty, I must clarify what I said earlier about Thanksgiving.

Contrary to Thanksgiving, which is always the second Monday in October, Easter has only been the same time once in the last 15 years.

That is why we were in favour of May, although my colleagues democratically defeated the amendments that the Bloc proposed in the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

For all these reasons and many others that I cannot mention for lack of time, I am announcing to the House that we are in favour of this bill and dare to hope that the participation rate will be higher in the next election. It has become apparent in previous elections, at least according to the participation rate curve over the last 20 years, that fewer and fewer of our fellow citizens take an interest in parliamentary democracy and fewer and fewer are willing to go and vote. That is very unfortunate in a democratic system like ours.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to the member from the Bloc on Bill C-16 and a have a couple of questions.

First, this is a new proposal for federal elections as we well know. We also know that there are two provinces that are working with fixed election dates, British Columbia and Ontario.

Generally, in the pharmaceutical industry for example, when a new product comes out, it has to go through various trials and testings and then it is released to the general public. Even at that we sometimes hear years down the road that it has to pull it off the shelf because some things were unforeseen et cetera.

I could use another example. When the same sex marriage issue was unfolding across the country, it was not until after various provincial superior courts ruled that it came to us on the federal side and we then asked the Supreme Court of Canada for an opinion and followed it accordingly.

On Bill C-16, fixed elections dates, would it not be wise to see how it unfolds with the other provinces and as it unfolds see if there are any glitches and fine tuning that needs to be done before we just implement? As the pharmaceutical industry, for example, we may find that there are some problems and we have to backtrack.

They taught us in physics in school that we test first and then we implement. Would the member not consider waiting for the outcome of other provincial elections before we move forward on the federal side?

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to mention something to my hon. colleague. I think that a third province has also passed legislation on fixed date elections. My colleague mentioned two provinces, Ontario and British Columbia, but I think that Newfoundland passed similar legislation. I am not very good at mathematics, but by my count, that makes three provinces. Maybe my hon. colleague should keep this question for a government member.

I think that the government has the power to legislate in these matters and, according to our internal research, no constitutional changes are necessary. The government has decided to act for certain reasons. We will see what actually comes of this. In principle, though, Parliament speaks through its motions and its votes on various bills. Bills can, by definition, be amended. If problems arise, things can be improved and changed. If improvements are necessary, the government of the day can decide to make them.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to focus on one issue about terms of elections. One of my complaints, and it is a complaint of constituents, is that premiers and prime ministers in the past have timed the market. They have the flexibility to pick the date that is most convenient for the government side.

A case in point is what happened back in the early 1990s when the Peterson government was in power for a little more than two years. It decided to call a snap election because the polls indicated it had a landslide. Fortunately, the people of Ontario saw through the game he was playing, punished him and elected an NDP government led by a person by the name of Bob Rae, who brought much pain and suffering to Ontario.

One of the parties opposite sees that person as maybe the guy to salvage its operation, which is going down. It is loaded up with lead, the boat is sinking and members think that guy might be the captain to bring the boat back up.

My real point is it that it avoids the ability of the government in power to try to time the election. Does he not see a lot of merit in having something in place, which makes it fair to the opposition parties and all concerned, by having fixed election dates and avoiding this unsavoury side of parliamentary democracy?

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the people who were listening to what my hon. colleague had to say probably noticed that the question he asked me was likely more just an excuse for pillorying the possible future leader of the Liberal Party, Mr. Bob Rae. However, I am not a card carrying member of the Liberal Party of Canada and have no intention of becoming one.

I can agree with my hon. colleague when he says that we would be taking away some of the Prime Minister’s ability to play little games. I come from Lac-Saint-Jean, and there people would say pull a fast one on the opposition. I can agree with my colleague on that.

The rules are the same now for everyone. For example, apart from the uncertainties of minority government, we know that there will be an election on October 18, 2009, if the government does not fall beforehand because of the realities of minority government. The rules of the game are clear to everyone, both the government and the opposition.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak in support of Bill C-16. As has been noted by my colleagues, this was part of the ethics package put forward by my predecessor Ed Broadbent before the last election. We embraced his ethics package in our election campaign because of the deep cynicism felt by citizens around the manipulation of election dates. Fixed date elections was part of Mr. Broadbent's ethics package.

Floor crossing was also included in his package. I for one will be glad to see the day when the government sees the wisdom of ensuring that we do not have another fiasco like we had just after the last election when a member crossed the floor and vaulted into cabinet, or for that matter, when someone vaulted into the Senate and then to cabinet.

All these things cumulatively deepen the cynicism of citizens in the democratic process.

Much has been said about the lack of participation of young people in the election process. I am happy to say that my riding had the third highest voter turnout in the whole country due in part to the number of young people who participated in the voting process. I fundamentally believe it was because they had a reason to vote. Hopefully, we have brought them in on the conversation so to speak. They wanted to see change. One of the reasons they participated in my election campaign was they wanted to see real democratic reform. They did not want floor crossing to continue. They did not want to see senators vaulted in one day and thrown into cabinet the next, which is fundamentally undemocratic.

The legislation is something we obviously embrace because it was taken from our platform. We are delighted to see the government acknowledge it. Hopefully, it will continue to rob our agenda on democratic reform because it is so fundamental. If our citizenry is cynical about the democratic franchise, then it is pretty obvious what will happen. There are examples all around the world where citizens have decided they do not have faith in their democratic institutions.

Worth of mention is what we attempted to do as a party. I sat on the committee and put forward amendments, but sadly they were not embraced. However, I think they are worthy of mentioning today.

One important amendment, which was acknowledged by the government, was the fact that this legislation would not change the Constitution. I noted in committee that we accepted the fact. It was a pragmatic approach and there was nothing wrong with it. The Constitution is a reference point for all Canadians and it certainly should be a reference point for Parliament. We cannot always do the end run around the Constitution. At some point we have to acknowledge that the Constitution is there for a purpose. It sets out the rules of engagement for our democracy.

We accepted the pragmatism of the bill and its importance. We agreed that we did not want to open up the Constitution. I put forward an amendment that would have clearly set out what would happen with respect to issues of confidence. It stated:

If the House of Commons adopts a motion of non-confidence in the government and the Prime Minister does not resign despite the adoption of that motion, the Prime Minister shall advise the Governor General to dissolve the House of Commons on the day the motion is adopted and to command that a general election be held on a Monday selected by the Prime Minister that is not later than 180 days following the day on which the motion is adopted.

The reason I put that forward was we had discussed flexible fixed date elections in debate in the House and in committee. Why? Because in times of minority Parliaments if confidence in the government is lost, then it will fall and an election will ensue. I thought it very important for Canadians to see that in the bill. This is why I proposed the amendment. Sadly, it was not seen as being in order. I simply want to put that on the record as something we had prescribed, not to undermine the bill but to strengthen it. The other suggestions we made were minor, but we felt they would strengthen the bill as well.

The New Democratic Party took the bill seriously. We put forward amendments, as did our colleagues from the Bloc, to ensure that it would be the best it could be. For that, we need to understand the nature of the bill is and what we can do with it.

The bill will not change the other facets of the democratic deficit. I have already talked about floor crossing as the major gaping wound in terms of the rules of engagement in this place. I know my colleagues in Manitoba are putting forward an anti-floor crossing bill. We look forward to them embracing democracy there. We wish this place would as well.

We need to do so much more. In the last Parliament, a committee on government rules took a look at what could be done to strengthen our democracy by way of going to the people of Canada. In fact, if I may read from the committee, it recommended:

That the government launch a process of democratic and electoral reform to begin no later than October 1, 2005 and to be completed by February 28, 2006; and

That the process involve a special committee of the House of Commons, and a citizens’ consultation group;

That was agreed to by every party within the House of Commons in the last House.

What happened to this? Sadly, like many things that are important, particularly around democratic reform, it was put off to the side by the previous government. It was not embraced. We got excuses about hiring facilitators, et cetera. I might point out that it did not take the previous government long to put together the Gomery inquiry and it found consultants within a minute to fulfill the complement of resources needed for that.

For the consultation of citizens on democratic reform, the excuse was that the government did not have time. That is not good enough. What the House has to do, and it is incumbent to build from the fixed date elections, is to ensure that we go back to what Parliament agreed to do, through its committee structure, and start a process to go beyond just the fixed date elections. That, after all, is only the beginning. We need to have a committee of the House work on the concerns people have around democratic reform, look at other models and ensure it is congruent with where people are at and do this by way of citizenry consultation.

Canadians can look for more on that from the NDP. This party has not lost sight of the fact that Bill C-16 is not the end of ensuring we have real democracy in our country. In fact, it is the beginning.

If we were to look back to a place in history that is similar to where we are right now, we might find ourselves looking at the whole notion of responsible government and the situation of what was occurring in the 1840s, following the rebellions in 1837. We would find that the focus of the country at that time was how to reform our institutions to bring in real responsible government. I believe we are at a similar point in our history.

People have lost confidence in government institutions. They have lost confidence in the way we elect members of Parliament. They have lost confidence in some of the players, and we saw that in the most recent history. It is incumbent, as it was in the 1840s, to restore the confidence in our democratic institutions.

Quite frankly, we have to do what LaFontaine and Baldwin did at the time. That is not to throw away good ideas, but to embrace them. The only way that will happen is if we go to the Canadian people, through a citizens consultation, and use this place in the best way we can, by having a committee to come up with smart, sensible, democratic reforms. If we do not do that, we will be in a similar situation as we were in the 1840s, save for the fact that people stood up, proposed and made sensible changes to the structures of the democracy at the time.

We know the outcome of the rebellions of 1837 into responsible government in the 1840s was the beginnings of what we see today and eventually Confederation. If that had not happened in the 1840s, and many historians concur, we would not have had Confederation. We need to strengthen responsible government. We need to do that by going to the Canadian people by way of a consultation and by way of this place having a committee.

Why is that necessary? I want to confirm that there is a problem in our democracy simply by looking at the turnout from the last election, not in the numbers of people but the distribution of proportionality of the vote.

If we look to the last election, the governing party received 36% of the vote; however, it received 40% of the seats. That is actually not so bad compared to the election before when we look at the government of the day, the Liberal Party, receiving 36% of the vote and 43% of the seats. There is a problem here. It is a fundamental structural problem. It is about proportionality.

We have a model presented by the Law Commission not too long ago that showed that there is a way to embrace both first past the post and proportionality. Canadians are not satisfied when their votes do not count. We know that fixed date elections are simply one point. It is about what Canadians do when they get to the ballot box. They have to know that their vote will count and that is what we have to fundamentally change.

In summary, the New Democratic Party supports the bill because in essence it is our policy and we are glad that the government took it. We want to see real democratic reform and building on this democratic reform, we want an engagement with citizens to ensure that all of us have confidence in this place and the democratic structures of our country.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to be totally dismissive of the NDP's position about floor crossing, but I want to point out a few facts.

Probably one of the greatest leaders of any time was Sir Winston Churchill and he crossed the floor I believe at least two times. We would be a lot worse off if we had not had Sir Winston Churchill and his impact on history.

I want to turn to Saskatchewan. The Saskatchewan Party was formed in the late nineties with eight MLAs. Four members from the Conservative side and four from the Liberal side left their parties to create the Saskatchewan Party. It was my point at that stage that the people in the constituencies would decide that issue and in 1999 they overwhelmingly put these eight MLAs back in office with large majorities.

However, lo and behold the Romanow government, which barely won that election, brought in three Liberals. There was Mr. Melenchuk, who became the finance minister, another fellow who became the speaker of the House and one other member. He needed the Liberals to maintain the balance of power. In the next provincial election after that, and Mr. Romanow was leader of the NDP government, all three of these Liberals were trashed at the polls. They lost their seats.

The voters in my opinion are the ultimate judge of these matters. They did not seem to think it was a big deal with the Saskatchewan Party. They give it a big endorsement. However, they gave Sir Winston Churchill obviously a big endorsement in British history. Obviously, in the NDP case in Saskatchewan, they were rather ticked off because they threw all three of these people out.

It is up to the voters in the final analysis. That would be my comment. If the member wants to react to it, that is fine.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the member's comment, we need to look at examples in history to give us some guidance in terms of how to improve things.

I hope the member is not arguing that if there had been floor crossing legislation at the time of Sir Winston Churchill that we would not have had Sir Winston Churchill. He was elected based on the merits of his leadership, clearly.

However, let us be clear about what we are talking about. We are talking about ensuring that the citizens, who we are here to serve, have confidence in their government. Let us be honest, their confidence wanes when they see parties wooing people over, crossing the floor simply for the purpose of vaulting them into cabinet and for reasons of power.

That is what this is about. We have to stop that. If we can improve that and make the rules clearer, we will all be better off. What we have seen most recently with the previous Liberal government and the floor crossing, and certainly with this government, is that it undermines the confidence and deepens the cynicism of citizens.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Ottawa Centre continuously touched upon cynicism and citizens losing confidence. I agree with that. However, we have to get to the source.

I want to ask him if he would consider doing one thing. I read the member's literature, living here in Ottawa sometimes, that he sends around. I think we cause that. Would he consider, in his literature, being more transparent and less cynical because we are turning off the constituents.?

For example, in the last election, it is no wonder there was a lot of cynicism and people did not show up because your party reneged on commitments.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

I think the member means “his” party.

The hon. member for Ottawa Centre.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad the member has taken my literature seriously. If he read it, he would note that there were simply propositions and there was no negative campaigning, certainly. It was good information, such as what we are going to do to clean up the environment and what we have done to propose ideas to clean up the sorry mess we had in ethics in politics.

Simply put, if the member wants to change the rules of this place to ensure that accountability is bar none, then moving things from the Senate over to this place would be a start and, second, looking at real democratic reform because it has been sadly lacking not only in terms of floor crossing, as I mentioned, but also in changing the democratic system and structure.