Bill C-55 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (expanded voting opportunities) and to make a consequential amendment to the Referendum Act

This enactment amends the Canada Elections Act to increase the number of days of advance polling from three to five, and to increase the number of advance polling stations open on the last day of advance polling. It also makes a consequential amendment to the Referendum Act.

Canada Elections Act

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think that the attacks against the Bloc contained in the member's introductory comments are unfair. There is absolutely no contradiction between our present position and the bill the hon. member mentioned. The amendment proposed by the NDP opened the door to fraud. We are all in favour of increasing voter turnout but, at the same time, we must not forget—and the member is old enough to know about this— that at a certain time, dead people were registered to vote. Even today, people use all kind of tactics to steal elections. We must keep in mind that some monitoring is needed when people are exercising their right to vote.

In Quebec, voters must now produce some identification at the polls. I have never heard anybody complain about that. As my colleague from Jeanne-Le Ber so rightly put it, voter turnout is higher in Quebec elections than at the federal level. We must monitor the situation while increasing turnout.

I did not have enough time to speak about solutions during my speech, but the member gives me the opportunity to do so. We could, for example, increase the number of advance polling stations. That would be a solution to improve voter turnout. We could improve accessibility in every riding, particularly in isolated or very large regions, by opening more advance polling stations. We could invest more in voter registration and in correcting the voters list.

Things can be done and we are very open to some of the solutions put forward by the member. We can listen. However, we must be careful not to implement changes that make a bad situation worse.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the government announced this bill to the media and members of the public with great fanfare. A number of young interns were used for a photo op for the bill. The buzz was that a big announcement was coming on democratic reform and it was democratic reform week. Everyone went out to the front of the Parliament Buildings to hear this great announcement.

I asked a couple of the young interns who they were, where they were from, and who they worked for? Then the minister's announcement was about more advance polling. The government brought these young interns out for a photo op just to make an announcement about advance polling. It might have been a good idea, but it was about Conservative branding. It was like a fancy label on a soup can but the can only contained gruel.

I wonder what the member's comments are with respect to how the government approaches piecemeal democratic reform.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member was listening carefully to my speech, I said just that when I indicated that Bill C-55 does not solve all the problems. I was not even aware that this bill had been announced with great fanfare. That is surprising. All the bill does is give people two more days to vote.

As I said when I began my speech, it is hard not to like sugar pie, but at the same time, there are many things that need to be done to improve voter turnout. The Bloc Québécois believes that the solution to low voter turnout is more political than administrative. What we have here is a far more administrative measure. We need to fight voters' cynicism about politics. The current government is not helping matters. When the majority of Quebeckers and Canadians are in favour of implementing the Kyoto protocol and the government does the opposite, it is not respecting the will of the people. Obviously, that makes people angrier and more cynical. It also happens when the government sets priorities that do not really reflect the public's priorities.

For example, I do not think that people's priority right now is to purchase $20 billion worth of military equipment, yet that is what the Conservatives are doing. People consider the environment a much higher priority than buying military equipment. But we have to be careful when we say that. We have to say that we are not opposed to equipping our soldiers properly. However, there has not been a clear policy for years—even under the former government—on the purchase of equipment for military operations. No, the government is waging a public relations campaign and saying that it is buying aircraft and used tanks. Unfortunately, in the past the government has bought submarines that sink and helicopters that do not fly. That was a serious problem. Today, when people see that, they wonder where their priorities are and whether the government is listening to them. That makes voters more cynical. The government needs to look in the mirror and not make a huge show of announcing this sort of bill, when there are many other possible solutions to this problem.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Richmond—Arthabaska for his excellent speech. I particularly encourage the initiative that he suggested about opening polling stations in schools. My concern is hearing from all the statistics that he provided that the turnout rate among youth is the lowest. I would like to get his view about the proposal to give the right to vote at 16 and if we would anticipate a 16% turnout for these young people. What does he think about this?

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question.

In fact, if memory serves me well, a bill was introduced in this House by a Liberal member, but we did not have time to go through all the stages of this bill to give youths 16 years and over the right to vote.

When this bill arrived on my desk, I did not have time to decide how I should vote in the House on giving the right to vote to youths at the age of 16.

Today, we must be careful because a young person can get a driver's licence at 16. However, there are other obligations that only come at 18 years old. I think that, at 16 years old, one can be adult enough to exercise one's right to vote. However, as my colleague is asking, would this increase voter turnout? We see that it is lower among young people. The number of youths who would vote would probably increase, but when it comes to voter turnout as such, that remains to be seen.

I believe this issue still needs to be discussed.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the bill before us today. The purpose of this bill is to increase—or so we hope—voter turnout. Unfortunately, even if the Bloc Québécois supports this bill, which we think will give more flexibility to voters, we do not believe it will increase voter turnout. This bill will only shift the vote from voting day to advance polls, as we saw during Quebec's last election. Participation in advance polls was very high, but total voter turnout was very disappointing. The same thing has happened in the past at federal elections: there were no clear links between voter turnout at advance polls and voter turnout on voting day.

In order to bring out more voters, we will have to look beyond strictly administrative matters, as my colleague from Richmond—Arthabaska was saying,. If voter turnout is not as high as we would like, it is probably not because it is too complicated or too difficult, although this can sometimes be the case—I will get back to this later on in my speech—but it is also partly because people do not want to go and vote. This indicates something much deeper and more serious, which goes beyond the actual voting period. It is something all elected members must think about. And perhaps, as the member for Richmond—Arthabaska said, we should change our way of doing things in order to encourage voters and show them how important their vote is.

I would like to compare voter turnout for Quebec National Assembly elections and voter turnout in Quebec for federal elections, for the House of Commons. Based on my information from Quebec, voter turnout for federal elections is consistently lower than turnout for Quebec elections, although it is the same pool of voters. I am not comparing the Canadian figures against Quebec figures. All voters in Quebec vote in greater numbers in National Assembly elections than they do in federal elections.

Ultimately, what incites people to get out and vote to choose their National Assembly representative, and what prevents these same people from voting to choose their House of Commons representative? In my speech here today, I will try to identify a number of factors that might play a role in people's decision. Among these factors, there are some that are more technical, such as those addressed by this bill. There are others, however, that are rather more philosophical and probably more important, although I do not have the statistics to support this in terms of any underlying motives.

I am somewhat new to politics, although I have taken part in two elections, one of which I unfortunately lost by 72 votes. Of course, when you lose an election by 72 votes, you quickly learn that every vote counts. You also quickly try to understand why every voter does not get out and vote, even when they say they will during your door-to-door visits, and you see your victory was only 72 votes away. You take the time to talk to voters, to try to understand their motives.

Technically speaking, there are some elements that will facilitate voting and can encourage people to participate. The bill before us, the purpose of which is to increase the number of days of advance polling, is certainly quite interesting, but this is far from the main reason and, by extension, the main solution. In Quebec, the advance polling period is more limited whereas, for a federal election, as soon as the writ is dropped, any citizen can go to the office of the returning officer and vote.

In fact, we can say that anyone can vote whenever they want during the election period, provided they can get to the office of the returning officer. This provision might work in urban areas, like my riding, where the office of the returning officer is not very far from people. Anyone in my riding can get to the office of the returning officer by metro. I imagine that in other ridings it is another story. And yet, voter turnout in my riding and in other urban areas is not as much higher as one might assume.

This leads me to think that the amount of time available for voting is not a factor. However, the issue of location seems to be important. A little earlier, the hon. member for Richmond—Arthabaska talked about seniors who quite simply have a hard time travelling sometimes. Some live in residences for seniors with limited mobility. For them it is not an issue of knowing when they can go and vote because they are almost always at home. The issue is knowing how they will get to the polling station. In my riding, I have noticed that in many cases a polling station was set up directly in the residence. This is a good idea and simplifies the voting process.

However, it is rather sad that similar measures are not taken for young people, students for instance. It seems to me that we should be putting a lot more energy into young students, especially, as the hon. member for Richmond—Arthabaska clearly illustrated, voter turnout for young people is disastrous. It is even worse during federal elections, when the rate is very, very low.

How can we make things easier for voters? Allow me to give a very concrete example. The École de technologie supérieure in my riding is attended by students from all over Quebec who live in university residences or in apartments located nearby. This makes for a university neighbourhood that is somewhat isolated, somewhat closed in on itself and focused on its own activities. On voting day, these young people are told to go cast their ballot in La Petite-Bourgogne, which is way over on the other end of town. I know this because I went door to door and I met with these people. I told them to go vote, and they asked me where the polling station was. I told them that it was in the same building as the La Petite-Bourgogne swimming pool, and they looked at me blankly because they had no idea where that was.

This is a problem because voters are not especially motivated to go vote, but they think they probably should. They are already less than committed. If things come up that make voting even more difficult, such as figuring out where the polling station is and having to travel a significant distance to get there, many of these less committed voters will be easily discouraged. They just will not go.

The same applies to the reminder cards that indicate the location. In Quebec, it helps that many or even most of the polling stations are in schools. People know where their local school is.

When I get my reminder card and I see that the polling station is at Saint-Henri high school, then even if I lose my card and I do not have the address, it is not a problem because I can remember that I have to go to Saint-Henri high school to vote. I know where it is because it is part of my community.

However, if the address indicated was that of residence xyz, of some centre or of a lesser known location, and that on election day I leave my workplace without that document, I may wonder where I have to go to vote. If I do not have the address and do not know where to vote, I will first have to go back home. These are minor inconveniences. However, when someone is not quite sure if he is going to vote, this might turn out to be the reason why, in the end, he will not bother. When most workers arrive at the same time to vote, there are waiting lines in some polling stations, because these locations are ill-suited and were not set up to make the process as quick as possible. In such cases, some people just turn around and go back home without voting.

I do not know whether studies were made on this issue, but I personally witnessed this situation. In the two elections in which I ran I, like many members of this House, toured polling stations to congratulate the election staff. I also took that opportunity to watch how the voting process was going. At about 5 p.m., the same scenario occurs everywhere, and particularly in those parts of the riding that have a large number of families and workers. People get to the polling stations and waiting lines begin to form. These workers get back home and they must cook supper, take the kids to soccer practice, pick up their little ones at the daycare, and so on. People all have obligations. I remember seeing a totally disorganized polling station. There were 10 or 12 polling booths inside, but they would only let people vote one at a time. This created an incredibly long waiting line. People estimated that they would have to wait 45 minutes or an hour, perhaps less. Since they had other obligations, they thought it was too complicated. Unfortunately, for reasons that I will explain in the second part of my speech, when people have to choose between their personal obligations and their civic duty, they increasingly opt for their personal obligations, rather than voting.

I find that the bill we are debating today is merely interesting. A great deal of work remains to be done in terms of the location of polling stations and their physical layout. What can be done so that at peak times, when workers arrive after work, voting can be carried out as efficiently as possible so that voters do not have to wait?

I said that I would talk a little about some more philosophical considerations. I will attempt to show the difference between what happens during a Quebec election and a federal election in terms of the appreciation of the elected members. When you tell citizens that it is important that they vote for their elected representative because members are the representatives of the people, you must be consistent, you must respect the members and appreciate their work. Unfortunately, this is less and less evident. It was not the case with the Liberals and it is even less so with the Conservatives.

The only message, in Quebec at least, repeated by this government like a child short of arguments, is to the effect that the Bloc will never be in power and that it is useless. That is not an argument that voters accept, as shown by the election results. It greatly devalues the role of the elected representatives. I wonder if the Conservatives said the same thing to their supporters when they were in opposition. I would like the Conservatives to provide me with some quotes from speeches they made in their ridings where they told voters that they were useless because they were in opposition.

They would never have said something like that. Perhaps when the Liberals have an opportunity to ask me questions, they will confirm that since they have been in opposition, they have been useless. Obviously, nobody would ever say that because it just is not true. We all know that the work of opposition members is very important in our democracy: our role is to keep the government in check. We are the majority in this House, and that means a lot.

There are advantages and disadvantages to being in opposition and to being in government. Opposition members do not have their hands tied by their government's promises, and they can criticize the government's actions frankly. Being a Bloc Québécois member is even better because our only loyalty is to Quebeckers, and we do not have to make compromises with other Canadian provinces on their positions and interests.

I think that the Conservatives' attitude will continue to undermine the role of elected members and will have a negative impact on voter turnout in the future. That elected members should do this is deplorable and very sad.

There is also the matter of the Conservatives respecting decisions made by the House. That was also the case with the Liberals when they formed a minority government. How can the Conservatives—like the Liberals—go around saying that we have to improve voter turnout, then turn around and act like this when they are in power? Both the Liberals and the Conservatives have done the same thing. They do not respect the choice made by citizens who elect representatives to speak on their behalf in the House of Commons. That has been happening more and more often with the two most recent minority governments. That might partly explain the difference between the number of Quebeckers who voted in Quebec's provincial election and those who voted in the federal election.

I am curious to see what will happen in Quebec now that we have a minority government for the first time. Will the National Assembly's decisions be respected? The current government will have to see to it, but as things stand, people become disillusioned when they see that the government ignores unanimous decisions without even giving them the time of day.

This government has also disrupted committee work. It even went so far as to develop a little guide for committee chairs explaining how to emasculate the work of committee members. The government's actions have certainly undermined the members' work.

We saw also what the government is doing in the case of former programs, such as Summer Career Placement—the new Canada Summer Jobs. In this case, members were entirely excluded from the grant allocation process. Of course, in the past, members were not distributing grants from the Summer Career Placement program, but they were part of the process. They worked with officials to establish local priorities and to provide some feedback on what was really happening in the field and where the needs really were.

People appreciated this. They felt that they had chosen a member who would be able to make the right choices and to guide officials toward the right priorities for the riding. Unfortunately, the Conservative government decided to cut all this. From now on, only one elected member will deal with these files, that is the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development. This minister does not know what is going on in each of our ridings and where priorities are. We find ourselves in an extremely partisan system, while previously, the system ensured that the elected member's work was appreciated. If the member made bad choices, constituents were able in the next election to tell the member that, if he did not take their priorities into account, they would replace him with someone who would do the job correctly.

If all this were considered and a little more effort were made, I am convinced that the turnout rate in federal elections would improve a lot.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his very eloquent speech. Of course, being himself a young man he is in a better position to understand why young people do not vote. In fact, I have the same glaring problem in my riding.

I would like to hear the member's comments on the idea of not only giving young people in our colleges and universities a day to vote, but also a longer period to register. Many of them do not have time to go back to their community to register. We could give them a longer period to allow them to register at their college, CEGEP or university so they can participate in the electoral process. That would surely encourage them to vote.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent suggestion. As I indicated at the very beginning of my speech, serious efforts will have to be made to facilitate voting by youth, along the lines of what is currently being done for seniors, which is a great thing. We should continue to have polling stations in facilities for people with reduced mobility. However, there should also be polling stations in educational institutions and, as my hon. colleague from Rivière-du-Nord suggested, longer periods to go over the voter lists.

The CEGEPs and universities become the place of residence of the young people who study there. Students sometimes go home to their families over the weekend, but it is really at their CEGEP or university that they live. We have to reach out to them wherever they are. The chief electoral officer and electoral organizations have to try harder to reach them. Students have to be told that it is important to register. It has to be pointed out to them that we are making things much easier for them by having revisal offices on site, that it will take them less than ten minutes between two classes to register, which in turn will allow them to vote at their institution, also between two classes, come election day. That is what we should do.

We need to go further, and that will prove even more difficult. The youth not attending CEGEP or university also have to be reached. I do not have any statistics on that, but I am convinced that, if the youth low turnout was split up between those who attend CEGEP or university and those who do not, the turnout in the latter category would be even more disastrous.

All political parties have to be aware of this. Youth not attending CEGEP or university are extremely hard to reach. They are hard to identify, and it is difficult to find out where they can be reached. This makes it difficult to encourage them to vote.

This is an effort that will have to be made. Serious thought will have to be given to it by all.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

When debate resumes, the hon. member for Jeanne-Le Ber will have six minutes left for questions and comments on his speech.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-55, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (expanded voting opportunities) and to make a consequential amendment to the Referendum Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Canada Elections Act.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[An hon. member]

On division.