Bill C-18 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (verification of residence)

This enactment amends the Canada Elections Act to allow an elector or voucher who provides a piece of identification that does not prove his or her residence to use that piece of identification to prove his or her residence provided that the address on the piece of identification is consistent with information related to the elector or voucher that appears on the list of electors.

Canada Elections Act

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great attention to the member's point of view. I realize that he is a veteran of the Bill C-31 committee and I respect that. I will take him at his word that his Cassandra-like calls of the problem that Bill C-18 is attempting to solve were in fact made and that they were not simply the remarks of Mr. Mayrand with respect to attestation for the people in the homeless shelters, student foyers and seniors homes. That is what I saw on the record so far as the Cassandra call. If my friend says that he brought up the exact problem that is being addressed in Bill C-18, I will take him at his word.

I do recognize that he, like I, probably has not been faced with a lot of problems in his riding regarding this very aspect. This is primarily a rural issue with respect to addresses not being civic addresses as mandated by the act.

I realize he has a philosophy and a point of view and I respect that, but I do not necessarily agree with it. I agree that Bill C-18 is a big government band-aid from a government that does not seem to care about the details that it should as a government.

Would the member agree with me, is this not a partial solution to a problem affecting one million rural voters in this country to whom we owe a duty before the next election to give them the right to vote? Is that not what we are trying to do by sending this bill to committee? We must show the government that it has a duty and a responsibility to be more responsible in the field of democratic reform.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Cassandra comments aside, please, I would like to point out to the member that I do not think this is ideological at all. This is about getting the job done and making sure we do our homework.

That is why I underlined the point that at committee we heard from people who said that there would be a problem with civic addresses for people in rural areas. In fact, if we look at the blues, at committee it was very clear that this would be a problem and we were warned.

I am not sure what his party was doing at committee and why the Liberals decided to support this bill and, along with the Bloc, amend the bill so that our privacy would be up for sale with the birthdate information. That is not ideological, or maybe it is ideological. It is about what I thought was a liberal value. I mention John Stuart Mill. Perhaps the member might want a reference on the protection of privacy and look at why we would have birthdate information on the voters list and with political parties. That is what his party voted for; let us be clear.

I did not want to get into an ideological discourse here. Simply put, of course we will try and clean it up. My point was how did we get here? We got here because it was an ill-conceived bill. When my party brought forward amendments that were based on witness testimony, we were not listened to.

I was simply pointing out that this time members should talk to their constituents about this. We should make sure that we have proper witnesses in front of the committee. We should make sure, for goodness' sake, that we listen to them this time.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Victoria should know that I will interrupt her at 5:30 p.m. We have two minutes for the question and answer.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, on this side of the House we want an electoral system that is as impeccable as possible. My colleague has explained very clearly why we so strongly objected to Bill C-31 in the first place, and which now has to be cleaned up.

It seemed that the government wanted to fix a non-problem when there are so many real problems, such as the prosperity gap, the environment, an Americanized foreign policy, but no. The government chose to fixate on a non-problem and thereby created real problems, and as my colleague has pointed out, both the Liberals and the Conservatives supported the bill. Now they agree that there are perhaps some problems that we pointed out during the debate on Bill C-31.

I wonder, when I go back to some of the solutions that my colleague pointed out, why not have a clearer, stronger enumeration process that would give us real lists? Why not accept a statutory declaration that would address some of these problems? Could he explain what the government might have been thinking in choosing such an obtuse solution, whereas we could be dealing with very clear and simple solutions?

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

It being 5:30 p.m., the hon. member will have to explain at another time. There will be five minutes left when Bill C-18 returns to the House and the hon. member for Ottawa Centre could respond to those comments.

The House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

The House resumed from November 15 consideration of the motion that Bill C-18, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (verification of residence), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

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.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

Accordingly, the bill stands referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to a committee)