Bill C-31 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Public Service Employment Act

This enactment amends the Canada Elections Act to improve the integrity of the electoral process by reducing the opportunity for electoral fraud or error. It requires that electors, before voting, provide one piece of government-issued photo identification showing their name and address or two pieces of identification authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer showing their name and address, or take an oath and be vouched for by another elector.
It also amends the Canada Elections Act to, among other things, make operational changes to improve the accuracy of the National Register of Electors, facilitate voting and enhance communications with the electorate.
It amends the Public Service Employment Act to permit the Public Service Commission to make regulations to extend the maximum term of employment of casual workers.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

As Ms. Robillard was saying, since this is the second minority government in the recent past, we are getting used to having elections every 18 months. It could happen even sooner this time, who knows. So there could be an election, we will soon have a new Chief Electoral Officer, and various legislation is in the process of being implemented, such as Bill C-31.

You have a great deal of experience in the area of bankruptcy and finance. Bill C-31 is of great concern to the NDP, because it would require people to reveal their birth dates to the various political parties. In Canada at the moment, there have been some problems with credit cards. One piece of information that is sometimes requested in order to validate a credit card transaction is a person's birth date.

Is birth date not the ultimate tool to give to people who steal credit cards? Do you think that Elections Canada needs the birth date, as provided for in Bill C-31?

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome to our committee, Mr. Mayrand. I'd like to use the eight minutes I have in the following way; I'm going to ask you three questions, and you can use the remaining time to answer each question, in as much detail you wish.

All three of my questions will be on the subject of the manner in which the previous Chief Electoral Officer conducted himself. I will be asking you whether you would be continuing the same practice or changing the practice. I understand that you might want to take some of this under advisement, but nonetheless, I'll lay these things out. It would be very helpful, I think, to all parties to understand whether we can expect continuity or change in these areas, and in particular to know that you are considering in good faith how to deal with these areas.

The first one relates to the issue of the all-party consultative committee that currently exists. This committee existed prior to the tenure of Mr. Kingsley as Chief Electoral Officer. The incumbent prior to Mr. Kingsley was in the habit of consulting with the all-party committee prior to making rulings or issuing interpretive bulletins. This allowed him to gain the on-the-ground wisdom of all the parties in a context in which all parties could listen in on what was being said by all other parties--there was no favouritism being shown--and then he would issue the interpretation bulletins. Mr. Kingsley discontinued that practice and has tended to consult with the all-party committee after the fact.

I would certainly like to know whether you would continue Mr. Kingsley's practice or the practice that existed prior to his tenure. At the very least, I would like you to take back the thought of considering which course of action you would take, and report back to us at a future date.

The second question I have also relates to the information and interpretive bulletins that Elections Canada issues. These are posted on the website of Elections Canada. When the new Commissioner of Elections was here, I asked him how he treated them or was going to treat them. It struck me that one could argue that it's more appropriate for the commissioner to issue these bulletins than for Elections Canada to do so, given that it's actually the commissioner who would have to rule on them.

At any rate, we would like some clarity as to who is doing what. The impact upon your legal standing, if you attempt in good faith to follow the interpretation written down in the bulletin, is obviously of importance. At the very least, I would ask you if you're willing to read through all the bulletins to see if you agree with them, and if you don't, to change them as appropriate and come back to us, and let us know the progress you've made on looking at those bulletins. I think there are 26 or 28 on the website right now.

The final thing I wanted to ask you relates to a provision of the new anti-electoral fraud bill, Bill C-31. This includes a provision--it's in clause 21 of the new proposed act--which states that in order to cast a ballot, an individual must produce either one piece of photo identification with their address, or two pieces of identification. I'll just quote from the legislation:

(b) two pieces of identification authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer each of which establishes the elector's name and at least one of which establishes the elector's address.

The previous Chief Electoral Officer volunteered to us, at his most recent appearance before the committee, that prior to actually issuing such a list, he would come back to this committee and would give us his tentative list and seek input from us. Would you be willing to do the same thing?

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Good morning, everyone. We have quorum.

Welcome to meeting number 12 of the Legislative Committee on Bill C-30.

We have three witnesses today. Mr. Michael Cleland, president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Gas Association, will lead off. He will be followed by Mr. Matthew Bramley, director for climate change, for the Pembina Institute. Finally, we have Gordon Lambert, vice-president for sustainable development of Suncor Energy Inc.

I would point out to committee members that we have the procedure and House affairs committee meeting right after us at 11. We want to move along fairly quickly, since they are the whips and House leaders. We don't want to make our bosses angry.

So we'll move along fairly quickly. As a reminder for the witnesses, we'll be giving you each about 10 minutes—preferably 10 or less—to make some opening remarks and then we'll be putting it around to the members of the committee to ask questions.

I would give a reminder to all that this is about Bill C-30. We know people have a lot of things to say, but we'll try to keep it focused as much as we can on Bill C-30 and ways that we can make it better.

Without further ado, I would ask Mr. Michael Cleland, president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Gas Association, to make some opening remarks.

Mr. Cleland, the floor is yours.

Electoral Reform

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak on Motion M-262 put forward by the hon. member for Vancouver Island North. I thank her for having proposed this motion.

First off, let me say that the Bloc Québécois will not be supporting this motion proposed by the hon. member for Vancouver Island North because it duplicates the work done by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

Considerable work has been done, and the committee has expended a great deal of time and energy as well as taxpayers money to produce its 43rd report, pursuant to the order of reference of November 25, 2004, that, further to the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs recommend a process that engages citizens and parliamentarians in an examination of our electoral system with a review of all options.

In March 2005, members of the committee divided into two groups and travelled to several countries in order examine at first hand the experience of electoral reform and to see how those countries had consulted and engaged citizens in the reform process. Seven members travelled to Scotland, England, and Berlin, while six other members travelled to New Zealand, and Australia. During these trips, the members had the opportunity to meet with a wide variety of politicians, academics, representatives of political parties and electoral commissions, and persons involved with electoral reform, and to study at close hand the systems and reform processes used, if any.

The committee approached this study resulting in the 43rd report by hearing from a number of witnesses. These included representatives of the Law Commission of Canada; representatives from various groups involved with public policy; academics who have studied issues relating to electoral reform and public consultations; and representatives of various provincial initiatives involving reviews of electoral systems. All of these individuals and groups have been extremely helpful in providing members of the committee with valuable insight on how to approach the issue of electoral reform, the ways in which to review the existing electoral system, and how best to consult with and engage citizens.

Moreover, a call for tenders for public consultations on Canada's democratic institutions and practices went out on January 9 in response to the April 4, 2006, Speech from the Throne, which stated that:

Building on the work begun in the last Parliament, this Government will seek to involve parliamentarians and citizens in examining the challenges facing Canada's electoral system and democratic institutions.

The consultations will address various issues, including political parties, the electoral system, the House of Commons, the Senate, and the role of citizens. These consultations are to begin March 9, 2007, and an interim report is to be tabled by May 23.

The motion tabled by the member for Vancouver Island North proposes a number of elements already included in Bill C-16, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act, and in Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Public Service Employment Act. Let us take a look at some of these elements.

Bill C-16 would relieve the Prime Minister of the prerogative to call a general election at the most auspicious time for the political party in power.

This bill has other positive spin-offs. It supports the work of Parliament by enabling elected representatives to better plan their work and by preventing elections from interfering with the adoption of the estimates. It also promotes voter participation. Contrary to what the Conservative government would have us believe, democratic reform as set out in Bill C-16 will not lead to an upheaval because it will not bring major changes to the status quo.

In a minority government, the opposition will still be able to overthrow the government and trigger an election at any time because this bill does not challenge the fundamental principle that a majority of parliamentarians can decide to trigger an election if they feel it is necessary.

A fixed election date system only works if the government in power agrees to it. Since the Prime Minister retains the right to recommend that Parliament be dissolved at any time before the fixed date, he can call an election whenever he chooses, with a good reason to do so.

The other element in motion M-262 relates to Bill C-31, which seeks to reduce the opportunity for fraud or error, improve the accuracy of the national register of electors, facilitate voting and enhance communication between election officials, candidates, parties and voters.

Bill C-31 was the product of close cooperation among the political parties. The government listened to the opposition parties when it introduced Bill C-31. The Conservative government should take the same approach to other issues, instead of stubbornly pushing its law and order agenda, and it should listen to the Bloc Québécois, which is calling for rehabilitation rather than repression. Moreover, instead of insisting on dismantling the gun registry, the minority Conservative government should listen to the Bloc Québécois, which is calling for better control over the registry costs.

As I have already said, the purpose of this bill was to improve the integrity of the electoral process by reducing the opportunity for fraud or error. As a member of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, I participated in the work leading up to the introduction of this bill in the House of Commons, so I can say that a lot of work went into it.

The committee includes representatives of each political party, all of whom cooperated effectively, thus enabling us to achieve our goal of improving the electoral process and strengthening the public's faith in it.

The bill also proposes another change that the Bloc Québécois has long been calling for: assigning each voter a unique identification number. This unique identifier will appear on the voters' lists, eliminating duplication and making for better lists. It is important to point out that this unique identifier will be randomly generated and assigned by the chief electoral officer.

In our opinion, other concerns are more pressing that motion M-262, such as the fiscal imbalance, which the Bloc Québécois, on behalf of all Quebeckers, is calling on the government to correct by transferring $3.9 billion to Quebec.

There is also the crisis in the manufacturing sector. The Conservative government's economic laissez faire approach is no response to the challenges manufacturers face to modernize, innovate and equip themselves better in order to compete with foreign companies.

These are just a few of the issues that we think are more urgent than creating a special committee to continue the work of electoral reform, because, as I said a few minutes ago, that work has already been done, and at a considerable cost.

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

Mr. Speaker, the gist of my presentation today will be to point out that in view of the very aggressive set of initiatives already introduced by the government on the subject of electoral democratic reform, both in this chamber and for application to the upper House, the motion by the hon. member for Vancouver Island North is effectively redundant.

I want to start my comments by pointing out that the government in its throne speech indicated that it was going to focus intensively on the challenges faced by Canada's electoral and democratic systems. This was done in part in response to the 43rd report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs in the last Parliament.

Seeing as the New Democrats are talking about the report of this committee as if it is holy writ or, indeed, brought down from Mount Sinai by Moses, I note that in fact it was not; it was brought down by a group of us, including me.

Let me just read for members what the report said, because it does not say quite what the New Democrats represent it as saying. It states that a “citizens' consultation group”, along with the parliamentary committee, should:

--make recommendations on the values and principles Canadians would like to see in their democratic and electoral systems...[this] would take into account an examination of the role of Members of Parliament and political parties; citizen engagement and rates of voter participation, including youth and aboriginal communities; civic literacy; how to foster a more representative House of Commons, including, but not limited to, increased representation of women and minorities, and questions of proportionality, community of interest and representation;....

Some of this is being taken care of through the citizens' consultation process that is currently under way, as the government has announced, and which has a much broader mandate than what the hon. member is proposing in her motion, but it is a mandate that reflects accurately what was proposed by this committee when it made its report in June 2005.

Indeed, we have made sure that the consultation group reflects what the committee wanted. At the time when I sat on that committee, I was not a fan of that process, but Ed Broadbent, who is constantly cited in the NDP's arguments, spoke in favour of that particular type of process. I said that we would have the usual suspects showing up at this process, and he said, “Sure, it will be the usual suspects, but they have a lot to say, and it is a good process”. The committee voted for it and the government is following through on the recommendations of the committee.

Now the New Democrats have discovered that they really favour another proposal, the citizens' assembly proposal, which Mr. Broadbent fought against vigorously when it was brought up by the Conservatives and which is why the Conservatives put a dissenting report advocating that proposal into the 43rd report of the procedure and House affairs committee. Thus, when the NDP members refer back to this through a revisionist version of history, we must recall that it is a little bit different from the way it actually worked when it happened.

I now want to list some of the legislative initiatives that the government has moved forward with on the subject of democratic reform, because this is really an extraordinary push forward. We are doing more on this issue than any previous government has ever done.

I will start by pointing to the Federal Accountability Act, which changed the rules for financing. It made them much more restrictive, eliminating corporate and union donations and reducing individual donations to $1,000 per capita, ensuring, in other words, that money and affluence are not the determining factors in financing political parties, and therefore ensuring that parties can operate on a level playing field.

We have moved forward on a number of items that deal with making the electoral system fairer, such as Bill C-31 to get rid of electoral fraud, a bill that the NDP opposes although all other parties in the House support it. It is a bill that will do a great deal to make the system much fairer and will ensure that no Canadian is disenfranchised, because electoral fraud disenfranchises everyone who is affected by a vote outcome that can be determined fraudulently, and that is a real problem.

The increased electoral fairness through Bill C-16, which is now in the Senate, having been passed by the House, will ensure that elections occur once every four years, not when the Prime Minister chooses to call them based upon whether his or her party is high in the polls. That was a terrible wrong. It was abused by the previous government repeatedly. This initiative will ensure that it is not abused again. This follows, of course, a series of legislative initiatives adopted at the provincial level, first in British Columbia and then in Ontario, to ensure that provincial elections are also on fixed four year dates.

We have also moved forward on Senate reform. Bill S-4 limits the tenure of senators to eight years. We are having a tremendous problem getting that bill through the Liberal controlled Senate. The government has initiated this bill. It makes sense. It is going to ensure that senators are not effectively appointed for life. Frankly, this is the first time we have seen any serious attempt at Senate reform in the history of this country.

Bill C-43, An Act to provide for consultations with electors on their preferences for appointments to the Senate, would allow for elections of senators. They are called consultative elections because we have to respect the constitutional prerogative of the Governor General to appoint senators.

That bill is interesting not only because it would allow for democracy to finally reach into the Senate and elections to occur within the Senate, but elections under this legislation would not be by means of the first past the post system. Rather elections would be by a single transferable vote system, in short, a proportional system that attempts to ensure that broader preferences come forward and are represented in choosing a senator. It would have the same effect in the Senate as what occurs in the Australian senate, for example, which uses a similar system where a broader range of preferences is expressed. This is a tremendous step forward.

I find it interesting that when talking about proportional representation the New Democrats always take great pains to avoid talking about the one piece of electoral reform legislation that is actually before the House right now, the attempt to introduce proportional representation in the upper house of Canada. In listening to the New Democrats talk about this, one would think there is nothing going on there at all and that it is not worth discussing.

Focusing on something that can happen right now in this Parliament is very important. The issue came up when the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London introduced a motion in the procedure and House affairs committee last week asking that the committee consider a variety of democratic and electoral reform issues, including the issue of proportional representation in the upper house. The New Democrats on the committee voted against it. They ensured that the motion would be defeated.

I do not detect a pattern of behaviour that is logical and actually beneficial toward moving forward on the democratic reform file. The New Democrats are trying to focus on a single hobby horse in a way that suits their interests best.

I find it interesting that Ed Broadbent advocated the idea of electoral reform. During the election campaign when the New Democrats released their election platform, that party moved from favouring more proportional representation as a general theme and letting Canadians look for the best solution, to directly choosing the solution that would be given to Canadians, the multi-member proportional system.

That system has some merits. That system is used in Germany and New Zealand, both of which are respectable democracies, but it not the only available proportional system. For example, it is not the system used in Australia's upper house, which is proportional. It is not used in Malta or Ireland. All of those countries have a single transferable vote system. It is also not the system used in Australia's lower house which uses the alternative vote system. It is not the only proportional system, but it was the only one that the NDP wanted to advocate.

The New Democrats were actually advocating it. They were saying it was essential to move from our system to that system when the MMP system, the multi-member proportional system, had just been defeated in P.E.I., where it received less than 40% of the vote, and an alternative system, the single transferable vote proportional system, had been adopted by almost 60% of British Columbians in another referendum.

We have to be careful. When we look at what the New Democrats are proposing we have to ask ourselves, do they favour proportional representation? Do they favour changing the electoral system in a way that reflects what Canadians want, which means maybe not choosing that system up front, or do they favour the system that is likely to produce the best result in terms of numbers of seats for New Democrats if their vote total does not change? In other words, the NDP is saying, “Without actually changing our appeal to the Canadian people, how can we get more seats in the House of Commons?”

That is not a beneficial approach. We have to work on allowing Canadians to make these decisions themselves.

Canada Elections Act

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it has been interesting to listen to the debate on Bill C-31 today. This is a bill that we have described as insufficient. It has not dealt with the real issue of what the failure of electoral system is. It does not deal with electoral reform. We soon will bring that forward for the House. One of my colleagues has a motion on which we will be voting and it will get to the heart of the problem in our system, which is the fact that we do not have a fair voting system.

Alas, though, we do have Bill C-31 in front of us. I think it is important to go back to the origin of the bill, which was a committee report that was cherry-picked by the government. The government decided it would use the opportunity to respond to a committee report by putting forward an agenda that it thought would make it look good in the eyes of the public. We have seen this piecemeal approach to democratic reform from the government before. Those members take a morsel here and a morsel there and try to make it sound like dinner, but it is not. It is just crumbs.

The government has done this before. Recently we heard that the government was going to deal with Senate reform by way of having elections in the provinces. The Prime Minister would bless it and it somehow would be real reform. That is piecemeal. It is pretending to be doing something.

Mr. Broadbent, my predecessor, had an ethics package that included the idea of fixed election dates. The government put that idea forward. No arguments there, but the government has not dealt with the other piece of Mr. Broadbent's ethics package, the fundamental changes he proposed to make our system fairer so that a citizen's vote would actually mean something.

Here we have Bill C-31. I guess the government thought that with this bill it would look credible because it was going to solve the problem of the opportunity for voter fraud. It is very important to state that: the opportunity for voter fraud. Because, as my colleague from Winnipeg Centre quite rightly pointed out, “there is no there there”, as the quote goes, when we talk about voter fraud. It is the opportunity. If we could deal with that, then I guess we could be dealing with many other issues. Climate change is not the opportunity but is what in front of us and the government has finally come on board and recognized it, a little late perhaps, but there it is.

This idea that we are dealing with the opportunity for voter fraud is what the government is responding to with Bill C-31. The government quickly put a bill together and made it look as if it was going to solve the voter fraud problem that was so ubiquitous. Then it would be seen as credible, as cleaning up the system.

I dare say the Conservatives did not do their homework. When the Chief Electoral Officer responded to the whole idea of voter fraud, he was very clear. He said there was rampant integrity in the system and in citizens. He said there was no problem. We heard evidence that there have been four cases over three years.

The government has decided that it knows best. I call this bill the big brother bill. Why? Because it says that the government is going to tell citizens what is best for them. It claims to know better than ordinary citizens. It claims to know better than the witnesses who came forward. The witnesses said the bill would not be good for citizens, but the bill says that is okay because the government knows better.

Witnesses told us that the bill would not increase voter participation. It would put barriers in front of people. As has been mentioned by my colleagues, it is probably a recipe for further disenchantment with the voter system. It will mean that fewer people will actually participate in voting. If that was the intent of the bill and the government, they have succeeded, because that in fact is what will happen.

We have identified clauses 18 and 21 of the bill as major concerns. I put amendments forward. These clauses are really going to disenfranchise people and open up the privacy of everyday citizens to people who will be able to exploit it.

I considered that if this were an opportunity for the government to address the problem of voter fraud, instead opposing the bill, I would bring forward ideas and amendments in committee. As has already been mentioned, one of the concerns is the voter card. Why are these voter cards left in hallways in apartment buildings. Anyone can pick them up and use them for whatever purpose, including voter fraud?

A simple piece of technology called an envelope can be employed. In fact, I brought this idea forward in committee. I suggested this to the Chief Electoral Officer who said that it was a good idea, that it was something his department was looking at. Yet when it was put forward as an amendment, the government said that it was out of the scope of the bill.

The government has failed to accept a simple solution, a common sense idea of putting voter cards in envelopes addressed to the voter. If the voter has moved, it will be returned to sender. It happens all the time with other pieces of mail. Why not do this with something as important as a voter card? Hopefully the government will find a way to bring that idea forward.

Everyone in this place knows the problems with the centralized voters list. We know why we went to that list, which was to save money.

The most important aspect of our democracy is the right to vote, to participate. It seems passing strange that we would not see the wisdom of investing and supporting universal enumeration, that we would not go door to door, as was mentioned by my colleague, the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre. We could employ people, for instance seniors or people at the Legion and others, who had the time and could use some extra income to go door to door. They know their neighbourhoods.

People who are members of civic and community associations could help out. As a kid, I recall the knock on the door. An enumerator would confirm who was on the voters list and ensure that the names were written down. These lists were more accurate than the centralized voters lists we now have on computer. That idea was put forward, but, alas, the government again said that it knew better, big brother, that it would not invest in it. Instead, it would do targeted enumeration.

The problem with targeted enumeration is that it is hit and miss, more often miss than hit. What we end up with is a scattered approach across the country. Voters lists in some areas are accurate and up to date, such as bedroom communities where there is a low turnover rate.

What happens in the areas where there is high turnover? There is massive turnover in my riding of Ottawa Centre. It is always a problem. A very simple solution to that would be to go door to door. That idea has not been embraced by the government. When it was proposed as an amendment to the bill, it was not accepted.

If members were to ask people in Tim Hortons or on Main Street what makes sense to them, to continue with a centralized computerized voters list that does not work or have door to door enumeration that would clean up the list, they would probably say that it would make sense to go door to door, employ people who need extra income and have an accurate voters list. It is the most important tool we have to allow people to vote. Their names are on the voters list.

If we were to go through the history of our country, people would be shouting from their graves and asking what we were doing. They fought for the right to vote and we are undermining that.

Those are two ideas. The first is to put the voter's card in an envelope, address it to the voter and if the person has moved on, the card is be returned to sender, prompting a cleanup of the list. The second is door to door enumeration. It makes sense and is a worthy investment.

Look at the money that is spent in government, yet it will not consider investing in enumeration. My constituents shake their heads and ask me what we are doing in this place, if we cannot even come up with something as fundamental as funding for enumeration. The voter's list is the bedrock, the foundation of our democracy. That suggestion has been rejected by the government.

The one that troubles me the most, and I have spoke about it in this place many times, is the idea that Canadians' privacy will be at risk because of the bill. As I mentioned before, the have the following in the bill. We have a requirement for photo ID to be presented when people vote. If they do not have photo ID, they are to present two pieces of ID that have been sanctioned by the government. If they are unable to produce that, someone has to vouch for them and that person has to be on the voter's list. That is the sequencing.

Each voter now, according to this bill, will be given an identification number, I guess analogous to an ID number such as a SIN. That is fine, we did not argue with that. In fact, we did not argue with having photo ID or the other two pieces of ID. We argued about what happened when people did not have that.

However, the piece that puzzles me to this day is the fact that the government saw fit to add birthdate information on the voter's list. I fought that in committee. I did not think it was necessary because we would have photo ID and a voter identifier. Because of this terrible problem of opportunity for voter fraud, which as we have already mentioned that there have been four cases in three elections, we will now have the birthdate information of Canadians on the voter's lists. This is absurd.

Not only will Elections Canada have information, every political party will have this.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Western Arctic for his passionate commitment to this issue and for his very relevant comments on how this affects the people in his riding of Western Arctic.

His question specifically to me was about what the effect would be in an inner city riding like Winnipeg Centre. I know that the voter ID issue is a huge problem, because I have seen the lineups, even under the current rules. People come to the voting station and have to stand in a separate line for an hour, and sometimes an hour and a half, to get registered.

Now the test will be even higher. It used to be that one could bring an envelope, a hydro bill or some printed material with one's ID on it, as well as a driver's licence, for instance. Once people have made the commitment to come and vote and stand in line for that long, if they were turned away and told to go home to get something else or something they did not have at all, that would be it, they would never come back. It is tough enough to get low income people convinced that it is relevant to vote.

If I may, I will suggest some things we could do that would have been relevant. If we made sure the voters' cards were sent in envelopes instead of just in the mail, I think that would add an element of security. This is one of the things that my colleague from Ottawa Centre proposed. I have been in apartment buildings where I have seen the cards loose around a bank of mailboxes.

There is also universal enumeration. There is no substitute for door to door enumeration. The permanent voters list is a flawed document. An army used to be dispatched, sometimes of retired people, sometimes of people from the local legion, to knock on every door to clean up that voters list before an election. That practice should never have been stopped, in my view, especially in transient areas with high turnover, such as the inner cities we represent.

Also, my colleague from Ottawa Centre made the point for allowing people who are not on the voters list the ability to swear in with a statutory declaration, with the voters having to swear in at the polling station verifying who they are. This is reasonable. This has been used in the past. We do not believe it was subject to wanton abuse, as was implied by the Conservative Party members I have heard speaking. We think this is a reasonable consideration.

If the goal is to have more people voting, we should be putting in place measures that will facilitate it. If one is satisfied with the status quo or even can live with fewer people voting, then Bill C-31 is the answer.

It seems to me that we are coming at this the wrong way. The biggest problem we have, like my colleague from Western Arctic says, is the poor voter turnout, not this notion that there is widespread electoral fraud, because there is no evidence to back that up.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to enter into the debate on Bill C-31. I would like to bring the perspective of the good people of Winnipeg Centre into this debate and I will try to accurately portray the views that I am getting from the area that I represent.

Let me say at the outset that we believe this new election law will be bad for voters and bad for the voters in the riding that I represent in a disproportionate way perhaps because it is, and I say this with no sense of pride, the poorest riding in Canada.

Low income people will be disproportionately disadvantaged by the provisions of this law, mark my words. I will make this point today, but I think we will be hearing a lot more about it in subsequent charter challenges. I say that without any hesitation or fear of contradiction. This will be challenged as a Charter of Rights and Freedoms issue.

Let me remind members of Parliament here today that section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms says:

Every citizen of Canada has the right to vote in an election of members of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly and to be qualified for membership therein.

This is a fundamental basic right and freedom that we established in this country. Persons wiser than I have said that the highest duty bestowed on anyone is that of a citizen in a democracy, and key and integral to that is the right and duty to participate fully in that democracy. That means exercising one's franchise to vote.

My colleague, the hon. member for Ottawa Centre, in his remarks in the House of Commons dealing with Bill C-31, quoted Alfred E. Smith, a former governor of New York, a famous populist and champion of child labour issues, et cetera. His famous quote was, “All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy”. There is no such thing as too much democracy.

Some of us are concerned that perhaps democracy was just a moment in history and in time. There are those of us who believe democracy is the highest achievement of civilization, but it is constantly at risk and under threat. If we are not vigilant and absolutely determined that we will embrace, enhance, protect, develop, promote, and strengthen democracy with everything we do, then it starts to slide. It cannot remain static. It is either improving or deteriorating. I argue without exaggeration that I believe the moves taken within Bill C-31 are detrimental and deleterious to the state of democracy in this country.

Speakers before me have made the point that requiring voter ID, the stringent new rules contemplated by Bill C-31, will have the predictable consequence and effect of less people voting. I would argue that if there is any one single problem with our election system today, poor voter turnout is the biggest problem we have. It is the failure to participate.

Roughly 60% of registered voters went to the polls in the last federal election. That is bad enough. But only about 50% of all eligible voters cast a ballot in the last federal election. If we treasure and value democracy above all else, we should find those figures very troubling.

The new changes contemplated by Bill C-31 will result in fewer people voting and ironically, or perhaps not ironically, and cruelly, the very people who need representation the most will be the most affected by these new rules. They will be disenfranchised and will not be exercising their right to vote.

I heard my colleague, the hon. member for Vancouver East, make some very passionate remarks in the House. I think I can safely argue that no one that I know in the House of Commons or anywhere else in this country makes a greater effort to encourage low income people to exercise their right to vote than the member for Vancouver East. Registration tables were set up in the Vancouver lower east side, some of the most devastated neighbourhoods and postal codes in the country. There was an effort to reach out and encourage people who were otherwise marginalized to participate and vote.

The member sounded the alarm that this bill will have a disastrous effect on the work that she does and will result in fewer people voting.

That is only one part of the bill that we are critical of today, the idea of the much more stringent rules about voter ID. That in itself would be enough to say that the NDP would not support this bill, but there is a second element to it that I find equally troubling.

I am our party's critic for ethics, privacy and access to information and serve as the vice-chair of the committee of the same name. From a privacy point of view in this era of identity theft and increased heightened concerns about the protection of the privacy of one's personal information, how could the government even consider putting the date of birth on the permanent voters list? It boggles the mind. It runs so contrary to everything we are doing, hearing and studying at the privacy committee. It is almost as if the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing in the government. It is sounding the alarm at committee that Canadians have never been so vulnerable to having their personal identity and privacy compromised and used in ways that the information was never intended to be used.

One's date of birth could be considered as one's individual pin number. That is the identifier. When we phone some place to get information about our accounts, the person at the other end will check by saying, “What is your date of birth so I can confirm you are who you say you are”. That is the identifier we use. It is the identifier crooks use too. If they have someone's name, address, phone number and date of birth, it is a recipe for identity theft. They have themselves a credit card under that person's name probably without much difficulty.

We cannot keep that information secure if it is put on a permanent voters list. I think I had 350 volunteers working on my election campaign. During an election campaign we cannot control everyone who does some volunteer phoning or some door knocking. It is not unusual to tear off a sheet of the voters list and tell someone, “Contact these 50 people and ask them to vote for our party”. This stuff will be circulated widely. It will not be controlled.

Our PIPEDA legislation mandates that anyone holding personal information must go through stringent security and privacy measures. Then on the other hand, again it is the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, the government in a cavalier way will spread all over the countryside one's name, address, phone number and date of birth on one convenient database. It is a recipe for disaster in terms of breaching one's privacy and allowing identity theft to take place. It is appalling.

In committee we are currently studying PIPEDA. Ironically, in this chamber the government is giving away the personal privacy protection of ordinary Canadians and in another room in the same building the privacy committee is seized of the issue of PIPEDA trying to enforce ever more stringent rules on the private sector so it will not divulge that information to anyone for our protection. Within the same building under the same roof we have these two competing dynamics going on: one striving to protect Canadians' privacy; the other cavalierly tossing it around the country. This ain't no beach party. This is not funny. It is not a joke.

I cannot believe we are even having this debate. I cannot believe the Liberals and the Bloc are in favour of this. We know where the idea came from, this date of birth business. Bloc members and PQ members in Quebec like to send birthday cards to voters. That is just crazy. If we are going to compromise the privacy and the personal information of every Canadian just so MPs can send birthday cards to try to endear themselves to their voters, we are really being flippant with the interests of Canadians. We are not putting the best interest of Canadians first and foremost, if that is the rationale. I do not know how they got away with it.

I do not know what the vote was like at the committee but I assume only one party voted against this idea at the committee. I think it was the NDP. I may be corrected; perhaps in the questions and comments period someone might want to correct me.

Then we heard from the Liberal Party. A university professor who teaches constitutional law, the member of Parliament for Vancouver Quadra, made a very good speech full of good facts and figures of all the things to be careful about. He raised the caution of the voter ID situation. He raised the caution about the date of birth. Then his party is going to vote in favour of it. I do not understand it. I do not accept that more thorough and comprehensive enumeration will protect the interests of either one of those issues.

I will say there is important work that needs to be done in the Canada Elections Act. I wish we were having a serious debate about cleaning up some of the atrocities that I have witnessed in election campaigns.

One of the favourite tricks of the Liberal Party of Canada is to clear out senior citizens homes, especially in Chinatown in the area I represent, and then at the polling station, as each individual senior gets off the bus, the seniors are handed a piece of paper with the name of the Liberal candidate and a big X beside it. That is illegal. The Liberals think illegal is a sick bird. They do not really have any concept of right and wrong. I have maintained this before. However, if investigations were to take place on the Canada Elections Act, I would love to see that addressed, because where I come from it is illegal.

As far as actual voter fraud goes, we were kind of led to believe that this act is necessary because of the preponderance of voter fraud. In fact, all we can go by is the actual experience. In the 2006 election campaign, one person was charged and convicted of voter fraud. It was a person who voted even though he was not yet a Canadian citizen. He voted for all three parties or something and got 30 days' community service. In the previous election in 2004, there were no cases; not a single person was charged or convicted of voter fraud. In the 2000 election, there were three individuals convicted of voter fraud.

Where is the experience? Where is the empirical evidence that voter fraud is so rampant that we have to take these heavy-handed measures and risk disenfranchising many--I will not say thousands and I will not say millions--possibly disenfranchising a lot of low income people who do not have the economic stability to provide the right kind of ID?

Where do we get off jeopardizing the personal privacy rights of every voter in the country by putting their DOB on the voters list based on that kind of flimsy evidence? If we could have pointed to a thousand cases, I still would have argued that would not warrant the heavy-handed measures of Bill C-31, but the Conservatives can only point to four cases in the last three federal elections.

We know there is funny business going on, but it is not voter fraud. It is not the permanent voters list. It is not people misrepresenting themselves.

The Conservative members have said that it is going on like crazy, that it is going on all over the place, but we just never catch the people. That is not good enough. That kind of reasoning is not justification for changing the legislation. We need hard facts, and the hard facts are that there were four cases in the last three elections out of 24 million votes cast. Mercy. Statistically insignificant would be the way scientists would phrase that percentage. I cannot even figure out how many decimal points of 1% that would be.

I do not agree with Bill C-31. I fundamentally disagree with it.

The one thing I wanted the government to do was clean up the loans issue, if we are to deal with elections at all. Somehow the government left a loophole we could drive a Brinks truck through, or maybe a Mazda, in terms of loans as opposed to donations.

In Bill C-2, the federal accountability act, we severely limited the amount of money that individuals can donate to an election campaign, and we completely banned any union and corporate donations, which was the right thing to do. Get big money out of politics. Nobody should be able to buy an election in this country. However, we left a big loophole where we can lend a candidate any amount of money or we can lend ourselves any amount of money and never pay it back. How is that different from big money buying influence in Canadian politics? Frankly it is a bit of a no-brainer, because if the loan is not paid back, Elections Canada deems it to be a donation in 18 months.

What they did in one famous case on the Liberal side is that 24 hours before that 18 months was up, they took out another loan and paid off the first loan with the second loan, so now another 18 months would go by. Who is ever going to police whether those guys ever pay off their leadership loans in conjunction with the rules? I believe it will be lost in the sands of time and we will have been made fools of, because we will have knowingly and willingly watched those people violate the spirit and the letter of the election financing laws.

If we were going to address any shortcoming or inconsistency in our Canada Elections Act, election financing should have been addressed, especially if we are going into a federal election. Every well-off MP, or any MP that has a big financial backer or corporate sponsor now knows that Elections Canada is completely feckless, completely unable to police, to stop or to do anything about these massive loans.

When is a loan not a loan? If one never pays it back, it is a donation, right? That is the only conclusion I can come to. There are guys lending themselves a quarter of a million dollars. No one person is allowed to donate a quarter of a million dollars to any election campaign, even their own, but they are allowed to lend it to themselves. I cannot do that. Ordinary Canadians cannot do that. The whole idea was to level the playing field so that nobody had a disproportionate competitive advantage because of who they knew or what corporate backer they had or if their daddy was rich. That was the whole idea. Well, that is out the window now. It is making a mockery of the election financing laws.

Our time in the House of Commons would have been better spent trying to get that fixed before the next federal election campaign, because it is going to snowball now. Every Tom, Dick and Harry who has no conscience is going to take advantage of that loophole. Those of us who have morals and ethics I would hope might have a contributing factor in stopping people from doing that, but others who have a paucity of ethics and morality will take advantage of that loophole, and it is perfectly legal, apparently. Elections Canada cannot do anything about it.

The new requirements for voter ID will add further barriers to voting for marginalized people, for low income people, and will seriously undermine the right to vote. I think we are going to see a charter challenge.

I want to acknowledge the work that my colleague from Ottawa Centre has done on both of these issues, the voter ID issue and the amendments that he sought to put in place on Bill C-31, which we debated last week. The amendments made it to the floor of the House of Commons and then they were summarily dispatched to the trash heap of history, but it was a noble effort and he tried his best, given the limited cards he was dealt to do the honourable thing and the right thing with this.

I want to acknowledge my colleague from Western Arctic too, who has been a champion on this issue, because in the northern regions and in first nations communities, the idea of addresses and photo ID is a big problem. There are no street addresses on a lot of first nations reserves and people do not have photo IDs.

I know that this is a matter that my colleague from Ottawa Centre has brought to the Privacy Commissioner. I hope the Privacy Commissioner sees things the way we do. I hope that we can look forward to a favourable ruling from the Privacy Commissioner that will say that the government is wrong, that it is putting the right to privacy and the personal information of Canadians at risk when it has a permanent voters list with names, addresses, dates of birth and phone numbers on it. It is just folly.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Public Service Employment Act, be read the third time and passed, and of the motion that this question be now put.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, regarding Bill C-31 which I will speak to eventually, I did not have the luxury of hearing my colleague speak because of his self-inflicted censorship. He knows that the committee heard witness statements from people who represent the homeless, aboriginal people and students. They were very concerned with what was being put forward in this bill, that a voter would have to find a person to vouch for the voter if the voter was not able to present photo identification or two pieces of identification that was recognized as legitimate by the government. In the present system a person can vouch for a voter by identifying who the voter is and that would be fine. As the member knows, the bill restricts it and only one person on the voters list in that particular riding and poll is able to do that.

The member knows from the testimony that witnesses were asked specifically about what effect this would have on the homeless who move around quite frequently and do not have proper identification. I asked if people would lose their ability to vote in the circumstances as presented. In other words, a homeless person who has to have someone vouch for him or her would not have that benefit because the person vouching for the homeless person may be an advocate who might be on the voters list but does not live in the riding in question. There would be a barrier to homeless people being able to vote.

The member was in committee and heard the testimony of those who advocate for the homeless, aboriginal people and students. Does the member not understand that the witnesses highlighted this barrier and said we should not do that? If the member believes them and not me, then why is he supporting this bill and why is he not supporting the amendments I put forward for a statutory declaration? In other words, do we not trust Canadians? Are we so big brother and paternalistic in this place that we decide what is good for them? I am curious as to what the member thinks about that.

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

Mr. Speaker, let me begin by restructuring my arguments in the right sort of way.

I want to begin by dealing with the very last comment the hon. member for Vancouver Island North made regarding aboriginal people and concerns about the identification they would be able to use at the polls. This issue came up in committee and I felt it was dealt with very effectively. It was in a spirit of multi-partisan cooperation that we dealt with this.

The committee amended the bill as it is before the House. It was actually a Liberal proposal submitted to committee. I spoke to it and we adopted the proposal dealing with identification.

Under the provisions of Bill C-31, we need to have either one piece of identification with our photograph, name and address in order to vote, or we need two pieces of identification authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer. I am reading from the bill, “each of which establish the elector’s name and at least one of which establishes the elector’s address”.

This was an amendment I had proposed going from two pieces of ID with an address and name to just one with an address. It ensures that a number of commonly used pieces of identification that do not have the address but that have a very high degree of certainty such as passports, bus passes, student cards, and items that are out there in great number and not likely to be fraudulently produced because the issuing authorities have very strong incentives for reasons of their own to prevent people from coming up with fraudulent bus passes, for example.

This allows a wider range of people to vote, particularly those with a lower income and who do not have drivers licenses or students who move frequently and therefore unlikely to have identification with their address.

The amendment that had been moved by one of the Liberal members on committee says:

--a document issued by the Government of Canada that certifies that a person is registered as an Indian under the Indian Act constitutes an authorized piece of identification.

This would be one of those two pieces of identification required to be produced at the polls.

A special effort was made to ensure that aboriginal people who have some particular difficulties, given the fact that many of them live on reserve and do not have some of the ID other people would often have such as passports, bus passes, student cards, or driver's licences, would still be able to have an ID and go to the polls to vote.

I have a great deal that I would like to talk about, but I am going to have difficulty doing it in the allowed time. Therefore, pursuant to Standing Order 26.(1), I move:

That the House continue to sit beyond the ordinary hour of daily adjournment for the purpose of considering Bill C-31.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

The member asked why, and that is a good question. Why would political parties need access to a voter's date of birth?

The member for Ottawa Centre felt that providing birthdate information was a contravention of privacy. The member for Ottawa Centre wrote a letter to Jennifer Stoddart, the Privacy Commissioner, expressing the concerns of the NDP around this.

In part, there is some feeling that providing voter ID to political parties is actually more about politics than protecting the integrity of our electoral system. There has certainly been some suggestion that this will allow political parties to target voters for campaigning and fundraising. Surely the integrity of our electoral system should not be used for such crass political purposes.

The New Democrats have been very concerned about making sure that the integrity of the system is protected. The member for Ottawa Centre put some concrete amendments forward in order to ensure that integrity.

With me today, I have three that he raised. He talked about making sure that all voter cards are sent in envelopes addressed to the voter, so that if the person no longer resides at the address, the card would actually be returned to Elections Canada and not just left lying around for an occupant of the residence to pick up.

In addition, he has requested that there be a universal enumeration system so there is an accurate voters list. Any political party who has had to deal with the current voters list knows that the voters list is inaccurate. There are duplicates. People who have passed away years before are still on the voters list despite all the efforts of their families and loved ones to have them removed from the list. I would argue that universal enumeration would help us address some of those concerns. It would provide a much more accurate list at the polling stations, one that people could rely on with some degree of comfort.

As well, and this is a really important point, the member for Ottawa Centre has suggested that people who are not on the voters list should have the ability to be sworn in with a statutory declaration, with a voter at the polling station verifying who they are. There is some provision in the current legislation to allow a person to vouch for another individual, but the person can only do it once. I would argue that in some cases such as homeless shelters, for example, some of the workers in those shelters have known some of the residents who come in nightly to stay out of the cold for quite some time and could vouch for a number of people.

In regard to some neighbourhoods, such as the Vancouver east side, I know that the member for Vancouver East has spoken about the fact that there is a system set up for statutory declarations so that people who often do not have government ID of any sort do have the right to exercise their vote. In a society in which we are talking about how we want an equal society, we must make sure that all members of our society have access to the right and privilege of voting.

One of the concerns that has been raised in the House is around first nations and their ability to access their right to vote. Although I agree that the status card is one of the tools that is recognized as government ID, what concerns me is that there is a new status card being developed. There is not a date at this point in time about when that new status card will be available. A release by the Assembly of First Nations talked about this in the context of land crossings, but said:

The “roll-out” of the new secure status card--still in the design and approval process--will occur later this year.

That means later in 2007. The release stated:

It is anticipated that the new secure status card would be available for use in time for the implementation of the requirement for trans-border documents for land crossings as of January 1, 2008.

The question at this point in time is this. If we should end up in a federal election in the next couple of months, and I know that many members in the House hope it will not be so, the question is, will the old status cards be accepted while the new ones are being developed? That is an important question that needs to be answered for first nations people.

It is unfortunate in terms of amending the Canada Elections Act that we also did not look at this as an opportunity for broader electoral reform. Many Canadians over a number of years have expressed concerns around, for example, the lack of representation of women in the House.

The member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca talked about having some discomfort with quota systems. A couple of years ago at the United Nations, the Inter-Parliamentary Union had some presentations on countries where there has been some success around increasing women's participation in the electoral process. What they found was that the remedy was complicated. Unfortunately, we do not have time in the House today to talk about what would be a good system around improving women's participation in the electoral process.

The presenters at the Inter-Parliamentary Union suggested that one actually needed a broad cross-section of remedies, including quotas. They found that in countries where quotas were put in place, legislated in conjunction with education and some financial supports, these countries did a far better job of increasing women's participation in the electoral process. I would agree with the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca that numbers in and of themselves are not sufficient.

In the early 1990s, Sweden was quite dismayed at the dropping rate of participation of women in parliament, so the Social Democratic Party instituted a policy of its own party. Although it does not translate well into English, its slogan was, “Every other one is a lady”. The party ran a campaign committed to electing more women. Fifty per cent of the ridings were held by women. As a result, that initiative by the Social Democratic Party shamed the other parties into running more women candidates.

We could certainly use that in the House, given the fact that only 20% of the House is made up of women. Although the New Democratic Party has close to 50%, with 41% of our caucus women, other parties have not done nearly as well.

I think it is very important to ensure balanced representation in the House.

To go back to the topic of Sweden, it managed to increase women's participation to approximately 43%. A couple of years ago, a survey done of the members of the House discovered that although women were participating in greater numbers, there were still many systemic barriers to women's full participation.

Parliamentarians were shocked. With 43% of women participating, they thought everything was going to be fixed. What they discovered was that there was still sexism and there were still inappropriate remarks, and women were still not getting some of the higher profile assignments. The Swedish parliament has struck a committee to address some of those concerns. I look forward to the report that will come out to see what measures they have put in place to ensure that their House has true equality and moves beyond just the numbers.

There is another area with this particular piece of legislation amending the Canada Elections Act where we have missed an opportunity to look again at some other broader electoral reform.

A couple of years back, the former member for Ottawa Centre, Ed Broadbent, put together a paper called “Cleaning up Politics: Demanding Changes in Ethics and Accountability”. I am not going to focus on the whole seven point plan, although I would welcome the opportunity to do that.

There were two key pieces in this plan. One was democratic accountability for MPs and the other was electoral reform.

I would suggest that there is a growing cynicism in this country around the fact that one can be elected for one party and a mere two weeks later end up representing another party without one's constituents having any say whatsoever.

Ed Broadbent, the former member for Ottawa Centre, talked about this, saying:

Democratic accountability should mean no MP can ignore his/her voters and wheel and deal for personal gain: MPs should not be permitted to ignore their voters' wishes,change parties, cross the floor, and become a member of another party without first resigning their seats and running in a by-election.

Wherever we can, we must put an end to backroom opportunism in politics. In particular, we must ensure that MPs who are voted in as members of one political party no longer have the right to ignore those parties and those voters who put them there in the first place. MPs should not be permitted to ignore their voters' wishes by changing parties, crossing the floor, and becoming a member of the cabinet without first resigning their seat and running in a by-election. We must combat cynicism by making better rules. Public trust cannot be written off for personal gain.

I know that this House has great respect for the former member for Ottawa Centre. Because he has served in the House for a number of years, he certainly has seen the winds of change and I am sure that he can only speak from a place of great disappointment at the floor crossing that has happened over this last couple of years.

In addition, the former member for Ottawa Centre, Ed Broadbent, was also a big proponent of electoral reform and talked about the fact that we have missed the opportunity to institute meaningful electoral reform. He talked about a couple of things. Again I will quote from the paper that he helped to author. He said:

A major source of needed democratic reform is our outmoded first-past-the-post electoral system. There is a serious imbalance in the House of Commons in gender, ethnic, ideological and regional voting preferences. Our present system does not reflect Canadians voters' intentions. Fairness means we need a mixed electoral system that combines individual constituency-based MPs with proportional representation. Most other commonwealth countries have already moved in this direction.

A major source of needed democratic reform is our outmoded, first-past-the-post electoral system. In Canada every vote should matter. Ninety per cent of the world's democracies, including Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, Ireland and Wales have abandoned or significantly modified the pre-democratic British system that still prevails in Ottawa. As the Canadian Law Commission recommended and five provinces seem to agree, fairness means we need a mixed electoral system that combines individual constituency-based MPs with proportional representation. The global evidence is clear: only such a system would positively redress the existing imbalance in the House of Commons in gender, ethnic, ideological and regional voting preferences.

The Pepin-Robarts Commission pointed out a quarter of a century ago, our present system does a great disservice to Canadian unity because regional representation in the House of Commons--in the caucuses and in the cabinet--does not reflect Canadian voters' intentions.

I am going to go back in history a little bit here and continue to read for members what he stated:

Recently a Standing Committee of the House of Commons voted unanimously on a motion presented by Ed Broadbent that called for a concurrent, two-track process to begin by October 1, 2005, with a joint session mid-way through the process in November. According to the Committee's proposal, the citizen consultation process would have concluded its work, and publicly released its report by January 30, 2006. This report would then have been taken into account by the Special Committee in the development of its final report and recommendations on Canada's democratic and electoral systems. It would table its recommendations in the House on or by February 28, 2006.

Regrettably, on September 20th, [2005], the Minister responsible...announced that the consultation process on electoral reform would not begin as promised this year. This cynicism effectively means that there will be no decision on electoral reform before the next election.

We can see that there was in fact no decision on electoral reform, so I would urge all members of the House to support the motion that the member for Vancouver Island North will be bringing forward, calling on the House to examine a system of electoral reform, proportional representation, that would have us make sure that every vote in Canada counts.

It is an important matter. I hope all members will support the motion from the member for Vancouver Island North and defeat Bill C-31.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is with some sadness that I am getting up to speak to Bill C-31, a piece of legislation that would amend the Canada Elections Act.

I highly value our democratic system, as I am sure all parliamentarians do. What we really need to be doing in our democracy is encouraging people to vote. It is important that we look for ways to ensure the integrity of our system so that our voting system is not breached. We also need to look for ways to encourage voter turnout.

I have a couple of issues that I want to specifically address today.

The rationale behind this legislation has been around alleged voter fraud. The Chief Electoral Officer has said that there have been very few incidents. It almost feels like we are using a sledgehammer to kill a gnat. I would argue that what we really need to do with this particular piece of legislation is look for the places where there have been breaches and develop fixes for those breaches. Instead, what we are potentially doing is disenfranchising voters.

Over the last number of elections we have seen a decrease in voter turnout. In the last election, voter turnout was somewhere in the low 60% range. That should be a true warning bell for each and every one of us here because one party could form a majority with 30% of the vote. If we do the math on that, a party with 35% of 60% could form a majority.This should be a major concern for us.

The bill that is before the House has failed to look for ways to encourage voter turnout. Instead, what I fear is that some of the things in it may actually discourage people.

There are a number of individuals who, for many good reasons, lack proper identification. This may be due to poverty, illness, disability, frequent moves or having no stable address because they are homeless. These people may not have an opportunity to exercise their democratic right.

This week my caucus colleague from Timmins--James Bay talked about a letter he received from a senior who does not drive and has never driven. She does not have government issued ID in the form of a driver's licence. She was very concerned about whether her ability to vote would be impinged upon.

In addition, one of the things that we look to is a lack of intrusion in our lives by governments. I want to quote from some work that my colleague from Ottawa Centre has done. He has done some very good work in raising concerns about this legislation. He said, “Ordinary Canadians feel a sense of vulnerability because of a lack of protection over their identity by governments and institutions”.

It may come as a surprise to many that Parliament is about to pass Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Public Service Employment Act, a bill that would make the average citizen's privacy even more vulnerable. The intent of the bill is to crack down on potential voter fraud. While this is an admirable goal, the bill misses the point and provides ill-measured remedies. Voters will be shocked to learn that in the next federal election every citizen's birthdate will be on the voter's list. Why? Presumably, it is so returning officers can use this information to verify if the voters are indeed who they say they are.

The bill would require all voters to provide government issued photo identification, in addition to a special identifier that would be given to each voter. If that is not enough of a peek into Canadians' privacy, an amendment was passed to share birthdate information with political parties.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-31, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Public Service Employment Act. The summary of the bill states:

This enactment amends the Canada Elections Act to improve the integrity of the electoral process by reducing the opportunity for electoral fraud or error. It requires that electors, before voting, provide one piece of government-issued photo identification showing their name and address or two pieces of identification authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer showing their name and address, or take an oath and be vouched for by another elector.

It also amends the Canada Elections Act to, among other things, make operational changes to improve the accuracy of the National Register of Electors, facilitate voting and enhance communications with the electorate.

It amends the Public Service Employment Act to permit the Public Service Commission to make regulations to extend the maximum term of employment of casual workers.

We support the changes to the Canada Elections Act that protect against the likelihood of voter fraud and misrepresentation. All of us who have been involved in vying for a position as an elected representative would like to ensure that those citizens who vote are able to vote honestly. All citizens want to ensure that their vote counts and also that the voting process is not subject to fraud.

Many countries of the world do not have that luxury. Many countries in fact do not have an electoral process like ours. I have said it before and I will say it again that it speaks to the excellence of the team at Elections Canada that Elections Canada is world renowned. Elections Canada not only ensures that in Canada we are able to have elections that are free, fair and above board but it also exports that level of expertise abroad. I do not think that most Canadians are aware that the team at Elections Canada is able to do this. Elections Canada does it because being able to have free and fair elections is a hallmark of a country's being able to acquire stability.

For example, this has happened in the former Yugoslavia, in the Congo and in a number of other countries in Africa. In particular, when South Africa moved out of the dark days of apartheid and into the rainbow nation it is today, it was able to do that in some small part with the help of Canada, Canadians and Elections Canada. It was a very proud moment for those of us who have had dealings with the country of South Africa that we were able to see the country metamorphose out of the dark days of apartheid into a new era where people are treated equally.

During the time of the election in the early 1990s there was great fear within the country of South Africa and elsewhere that the country would implode in a bloodbath, but it did not happen for many reasons. One small reason it did not happen is that Elections Canada was involved in the elections that were taking place. Why was Elections Canada asked to participate? Because the men and women who serve in that area are people of excellence and are above reproach. They are public servants who do an unbelievable job for all of us here and abroad.

It is quite tragic that the head of Elections Canada, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, a person who served the public for more than 16 years in that post, if my memory serves me correctly, has left that post. We do not know why he left, but I will say that losing a superb public servant like him is a loss to Elections Canada, a loss to Canada and a loss to the international community. Thankfully, within days of Mr. Kingsley's leaving that post, he found another job in Washington, one that enables him to use his expertise and his skills to deal with elections all over the world. This is another fine example of a Canadian who is able to use his or her expertise in the service of many.

Unfortunately, we have lost other superb public servants since the government came on board. Mr. Peter Harder, the deputy minister of Foreign Affairs, comes to mind. He is leaving his post. If memory serves me correctly, he has served in the public service for some 29 years. He served as deputy minister of various departments. He acquitted himself with excellence and served many different governments, both Conservative and Liberal. He did this in the best interest of the country and the departments in which he worked. It is a huge loss. The reasons, I am sure, are personal, but it is unfortunate that we are seeing this egress of individuals from our public service.

Unfortunately, the power has shifted quite significantly to the Prime Minister's Office in a way that we have not seen, certainly not in my memory, and I have been here 13 years. Even those who have served longer cannot remember a situation where so much power was centred in the hands of the few in the PMO, people who, with the exception of the Prime Minister, are unelected and unaccountable to the public.

It is a divide among not only the Prime Minister, his office, his caucus and his cabinet, but between bureaucrats and public servants who serve all governments with honour, regardless of political stripe. By not listening to the public servants in our bureaucracy, the Prime Minister is treading on very thin ice. He is also ignoring a great deal of expertise within the bureaucracy that could serve him well.

I happen to be involved in foreign affairs. It is deeply disappointing to see the way in which the Department of Foreign Affairs has been excluded from the creation of foreign policy within our country. This is an unwise move. There are a lot of very smart people in foreign affairs with a great deal of experience. Foreign affairs is not something that a person could simply pick up in a matter of months. It is a deficit of the government and we see many examples of it.

For example, in Afghanistan the government is quite appropriately supporting our troops, as we all do, and supporting the military aspect as well. However, the Prime Minister is ignoring the political solutions to Afghanistan, which are required to resolve the challenge there. If we are to deal with the insurgency within Afghanistan in the future, it has to be done through political solution, for example, by dealing with the opium crop.

Why has the Prime Minister not called Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair and asked them to stop the poppy crop eradication program? By not doing that and allowing that process to continue, it is putting the lives of our troops at grave risk. Farmers have said that if we eradicate the poppies on their farms, they cannot feed their families or themselves. As a result of that, they are going to join the Taliban, taking up arms against the group that is destroying their poppy crops. While our troops are not involved, Afghan people do not differentiate between groups in their country. In other words, they will not differentiate between Americans, Brits, Canadians, Dutch and others.

It is a very grave situation taking place right now. I implore the Prime Minister to call President Bush and Prime Minister Blair and ask them to stop the poppy eradication because it is putting the lives of their troops and our troops at greater risk.

It would be smart to listen to the public service and divert the opium crop into the development of pharmaceutical grade narcotics. One of the great challenges within developing countries is the absence of much needed essential medications, including narcotics. Imagine a people needing surgery or other medical help, such as repairing a broken arm. They would go through that without pain relief. It is inconceivable in our country, but the fact remains there is an 80% deficit of narcotics in developing countries.

Why do we not think about taking that opium crop, diverting it into the production of pharmaceutical grade narcotics, because opium is a substrate, then taking that material and producing medications that can then be sold and distributed to developing countries? This would be sensible and it would benefit farmers and Afghanistan by having a value added industry that is legal and safe. It would also undercut the financial underpinnings that are propping up the Taliban.

The second question is this. Why does the government not listen to our public service on the issue of the insurgency? We cannot win an insurgency, particularly one that has its bases outside of the country. In this case the Taliban's bases are in Pakistan. Therefore, there is no hope whatsoever of defeating an insurgency through military means when the people we are fighting flee across the border and disappear from Afghanistan.

The only solution to that is to deal with it politically. One solution could be the development of a regional working group on Afghanistan, which would involve the countries of Indian, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and others. They are all playing a game within that country while our troops are there. Unless all those countries are involved, we will never be able to resolve the internal and complex dynamic within the country.

I know the government recently, and I think wisely, put more money into the Afghan national police. However, why do we not ask our NATO partners to also do the same. They have been reticent and have not come up to the plate to support our troops, but one thing they can do is put money and resources to train the Afghan national police.

When our troops go in and take out the Taliban, there has to be a constabulary force that comes in behind them, which is able to provide security, but that is not there. The Afghan national police are seen to be as much of a problem on the ground as the Taliban. The country needs an effective Afghan national police force, and that is not happening. Police officers are paid $70 a month, they have two weeks of training and they are ill-equipped. What do they do? They become part of the problem and they engage in thuggish behaviour.

How do we stop that? We have to put in the resources. I implore the Minister of Foreign Affairs to say to his counterparts in NATO that this is something that would be palatable to the domestic constituencies within the countries that make up NATO for them to contribute finances, resources and personnel to address this issue.

Third, in dealing with the internal dynamic within Afghanistan, the government continues to talk about the Taliban today, as if it was the same Taliban as in 2001. It is not. The Taliban of 2007 is amalgam of different groups. We need to draw some of those groups away from the Taliban and allow them to become a part of the decision making process in the future of their country.

The government needs to call on Mr. Karzai to call a loya jirga, which would bring in those disaffected groups together, those that excluded from the Bonn agreement, bring them back to the table and include them in the future of their country. By doing so, we will have a situation where these groups will move from the Taliban and become a part of the future of Afghanistan. This would weaken the Taliban quite effectively.

Lastly, this ties into the opium situation. We have to follow the money with respect to opium. There are people in Mr. Karzai's government who are roundly seen as being very corrupt. While we are giving the government a lot of money, it is not trickling down to the people who need it the most, those on the ground. We need to spend an awful lot more resources to provide for the basic needs of the people to allow them to help themselves. By following the money, some of that is going to be tracked to Mr. Karzai's government, and those people have to be prosecuted.

Mr. Karzai is in a place where he has a bayonet in his chest and a bayonet in his back. He cannot do this by himself. He is going to need the partners, of which we are one, to assist him in ensuring that his government can have the transparency and accountability and that moneys that go into Mr. Karzai's government are put toward the basics such as primary health care, primary education, water security, food security, corruption and governance.

Also important is how we measure this. One particular parameter is maternal mortality, which is something we need to look at carefully. The maternal mortality statistics are astronomical. In fact, I believe they are the worst in the world. The chance of a woman dying in pregnancy in Afghanistan is 300 times greater than in Canada.

If we want to find out how social programs in a country are working, particularly in the area of the health of the people, we look at this. If the maternal mortality figures are down, it means health care personnel, medications, diagnostics and a rudimentary surgical system that is clean and effective are available. We then we know it will affect all the other parameters, such as infant mortality. We know we will be able to affect the lives of men and women. It also means there is adequate nutrition and clean water.

If we want to measure the effectiveness of how we have done in Afghanistan, the maternal mortality statistics within that country is very a sensitive indicators. Right now that indicator is the worst in the world. The indicator has to shake Canadians up. We have do a better job. It means devoting those resources not into single silo issues such as particular disease silos, but to developing an integrated health care system. This applies not only for Afghanistan, but for other countries as well.

One of the mistakes we make is we pour money into malaria, or AIDS or a number of other diseases such as tuberculosis. While this is important, a smarter way to do this would be to work on building integrated health care systems to ensure that we have the health care personnel, the diagnostics, the medications, clean water, the nutrition, the personnel and also the surgical sites and clinics, which are clean and effective and reasonably well equipped.

If we silo the medications and our health care initiatives internationally, we will not have the long term effect that we need to establish an integrated health care system for developing countries. This is exceptionally important. One of our flaws is we do not deal with the health care system as an integrated system. We do not produce a long term, stable health care system that can function on its own for a prolonged period of time.

It is a challenge. I ask the minister responsible for CIDA to contact her excellent public servants in CIDA and to work with them so that Canada is a leader, with other partners, in doing this. It is important for Canada to work in Afghanistan and in other areas.

On Darfur, which is be utterly excluded by the government, I plea to the ministers responsible to act now. The Prime Minister said “never again”. The Prime Minister said that he would not allow genocide and gross human rights abuses to occur on his watch. They are occurring now.

The atrocities of genocide and human rights abuses are not only occurring in Darfur, but in Chad and the Central African Republic. If any member has seen the movie Blood Diamond, there are some horrific scenes in it. While it is only Hollywood, it gives us some indication of the type of terror that people endure such as gang rapes, their limbs are chopped off and there is torture in ways that we cannot imagine. That is happening right now and it is happening on our watch.

God help us if five years down the line someone writes a book Shake Hands with the Devil, part two, about our failure to deal with the genocide in Darfur, Chad and the Central African Republic.

This is entirely preventable. Why on earth do we not call on other countries and work with them to send in the troops, which are required right now, to support the African Union to save the lives on the ground? We must do it now. If we fail to do this, we are simply condoning genocide. Innocent people are dying, being tortured and raped unnecessarily.

The crisis can be dealt with. Khartoum will block our efforts. This is the longest serving genocidal regime in the world. The issue before us is do we listen to Khartoum, which does not want this to end, or do we act even if this regime does not like it? I submit that we should act, get the troops on the ground, get them in now and save lives.

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Ottawa Centre is right. I have participated in a number of elections over the years. I have participated not only as a candidate but as a campaign manager for other candidates. I have a fair amount of experience in Canada's elections.

Clearly, the people who would be most vulnerable to losing their vote if the provisions of Bill C-31 are not amended are those who are most vulnerable in our society. It will be the people who are disabled, the people who are sick, the people who live in poverty. It will be women who are in shelters for battered women. It will be the homeless. They are the people who will be disenfranchised under this legislation unless changes are made to it.

I urge the government to make those changes to ensure that all in society have a fair opportunity to cast their ballots.