Bill C-6 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (visual identification of voters)

This enactment amends the Canada Elections Act to require that electors have their faces uncovered before voting, or registering to vote, in person, and supplements the authority of Elections Canada to appoint sufficient personnel to manage the conduct of the vote at the polls.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Let's just go back to that then, Chair, because that's truly what the whole issue today is. We came here today to talk about, in a funny way--because I love the 106(4) motion--the 106(4) motion, signed by four members of this committee, to talk about putting this committee back on track and to talk about Bill C-6.

Did we come here to talk about Bill C-6? It's funny, because 106(4) actually doesn't allow you.... You get to come here to say what you will talk about, not about what you were going to talk about. We're going to have a discussion about talking about 106(4). I'm going to try to use this back home whenever I'm in trouble and say, “Okay, we can't talk about it now; we're only going to talk about talking about it”.

The other members of the committee, Chair, have used the same thing to try to move parts of their partisan issue forward and to talk about, again, in-and-out financing. Whenever they've brought it forward, we've risen to the occasion, Chair. The members on this side of the table have risen to the issue and talked about it on their behalf. Whatever they've wanted to talk about, whatever motion has been moved, we've grabbed on and actually talked about it.

Well, here we are today, Chair, with our own motion. We moved forward today with a 106(4) motion about Bill C-6. It is about us wanting to put together this committee and talk about Bill C-6--call witnesses, what the budget would need to be. Instead, what happened when we asked for a vote was that we had our motion amended. Was it amended to make it simpler? Was it amended to make it easier to talk about Bill C-6? Was it amended to actually say, great idea, let's talk about Bill C-6? Was it amended to bring the Chief Electoral Officer here and maybe get to the bottom of why he's having trouble with visual identification or voter ID in elections? No, it wasn't at all.

An amendment was moved to the original motion Mr. Lukiwski put forward to stop right there, not talk about legislation, and not do the work we were sent here to do. Please don't, because we're now going to talk about, guess what, the in-and-out scheme again. We're going to talk about it, and when we're done talking about it, we might talk about legislation. That's what the amendment says.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Chair, very quickly, through you, because I really want to spend a lot more time talking about it, I'll give you a piece so you can see where I'm headed with it.

Their motion talks about the in-and-out scheme, the election financing scheme, which would mean following the election financing laws, and yet we have other election financing laws on loans that must be paid back in a reasonable amount of time and not just written off. Yet we don't want to open our books and talk about those. So I'm hoping, Chair, that to you there's relevance there.

We seem to want to nitpick and pick and choose the pieces of election financing we do want to talk about, and yet we don't want to open up the whole election financing act, which is truly the deal of this committee—to look at election financing and the running of elections in Canada in its totality, rather than just to nitpick and to pick and choose the little pieces that might give me a hunk of mud to sling at the other guy.

Those, Chair, are my thoughts on where the relevance is on that. I just want to throw it out that there are still some other election financing pieces out there from their last leadership race—some fairly significant and outstanding loans—and I believe the next report is due in June on how they've retired those loans. In fact, they are supposed to be all retired by that date, and if they're not, they actually would be, if I'm not mistaken, assumed to have been improper donations. They would become donations because they're in fact not paying them off.

If we're going to get to that end, as much as I talked about the bit of hypocrisy with the ethics chair and then not wanting to open their books, there's another piece of the books that I think, if we threw them open, we'd have a chance to look at—other things.

The other piece also, Chair, is we can also go back to the findings of Justice Gomery. There were still some real pieces in those findings that talked about election financing. There's still a lot of money certainly that Justice Gomery spoke of, and the trail hasn't been connected there either. I believe $40 million is the amount that was not found, and we can only assume it went into election financing someplace too. If those books came open, maybe we could look at that too. I think perhaps that's the reason they don't want to open the books, because of what comes jumping out when we do open them.

I did mention some of the affidavits that we've made on elections financing. Just to clarify what I had said earlier, because I did not have this book in front of me and now I do, it talks about the transfer of funds and election advertising.

If we could talk about campaign ads being national in scope, which I mentioned earlier, it says “election advertising” means:

the transmission to the public by any means during an election period of an advertising message that promotes or opposes

—because sometimes we do put ads out that oppose another candidate or one of their views—

a candidate, including one that takes a position on an issue with which a registered party or a candidate is associated.

That sure sounds like that's what most of these people have done, or what we've done. The identification of “election advertising” is:

All election advertising that promotes or opposes a candidate, including taking a position on an issue with which a registered party or candidate is associated, must indicate who authorized it....

I think we've shared before that we've certainly followed those rules too, Chair. They're asking for us to do this investigation, and yet I want to read into the record, of course, why the investigation is not necessary, and this is certainly stating it clearly out of the Elections Canada handbook. I don't think there's anybody on the other side who is going to deny that we did these things.

I waited and nobody did, so I guess they're not denying we followed the rules of Elections Canada.

If it's clear that we followed the rules of Elections Canada, I'm not certain why we need to do the investigation of the in-and-out piece, and why we aren't talking about Bill C-6 instead.

I've talked about election financing and the rules on election financing. But the other thing we're talking about is regional ad buys. We've talked a bit about how you can't do an ad in a local area for the national party—I think that's the scheme they're talking about. That is, of course, a scheme; to them it's always a scheme.

In the past I've certainly done a fair number of radio buys. You're always happy when the radio station has as great a reach as possible. But if it's an election advertising situation and you're trying to reach only one riding, there's no wall at the edge of that riding to stop radio signals from flowing into another riding. It just doesn't happen. Radio signals go where they go. If someone has the appropriate radio station on, it comes in.

That's why we were always asked to put a tag on it to say it was truly Joe Preston advertising in Elgin—Middlesex—London. Even though it might have been heard in one of the other London ridings, it was me making a statement about myself, another candidate, or an issue of my own party or another party. I paid for the piece that was spilling into or playing in Elgin—Middlesex—London; however, it may have gone other places. That's how regional ad buys happen.

As an example, a group around Edmonton bought radio ads that covered all of those ads. Of course, they may have been tagged at the bottom that they were for the member from Edmonton—Sherwood Park, but they might have spilled into another Edmonton riding. The next day it would have been that member's name on them.

We just want to clear this up. I can't stop the paper boy from delivering to the guy next door, even though I've paid for the ad in Elgin—Middlesex—London. The London Free Press covers all of London. They don't put out a separate section for my riding; they cover all of London. Although I may have paid for an ad hoping to reach voters in my riding, it will certainly reach other ridings. If I've spoken of issues that apply to other ridings, my party may benefit from the ad that was placed in the newspaper and went to other ridings, but it was not the intent to do so. The intent was for me to advertise. Walls don't go up and we don't stop the paper boy from delivering just because I have an ad in the paper today.

Part of what they're asking us to look at is that scheme. They feel we've spent money locally on national advertising that should have only been national. Well, we can't help it. The newspaper goes where the newspaper goes. Radio signals go where radio signals go. TV shows on cable now go around the country.

In one of my other conversations with this group, I said we used to be able to isolate test markets in this country very clearly. We could test products, whether in a political field or a retail field. You could feel safe that if you ran a TV ad in the Winnipeg market, for example, it wouldn't go anywhere else and people knew it was only there. But that doesn't happen any more. When you buy an ad on CanWest Global or CTV, it goes across the country. It's not about the one little market any more. There are associated radio stations and TV stations.

I'd like to come back to the beginning. We're really talking here about the....

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Eloquent—yes, it was.

Sorry, through you, Chair, to Mr. Lukiwski, it was very good this morning.

We could have gone right to work, and the motion said that. We would then go on to talking about setting a budget and getting ready to discuss C-6. No, instead we're the loudest bullies, so we're going to change that, Chair, and we're going to make it so that before we deal with legislation we're going to get to sling some more mud in this room.

I hope the cleaners have an easy time cleaning up each night after the mud that's thrown.

I've talked a lot about where we were on this committee and what the folks back home might be thinking about it. But I guess the other part is that it's a good thing this is a fairly boring piece of television viewing, or at least listening or reading, because we're not saying much about the parenting skills and conflict resolution skills that this group has either. We've gone on for a number of times now talking about where we are at on this, Chair, and not able to get to a resolution.

I thought what we were offering this morning was indeed that. I thought that after having been a bit inundated with motions from the other side on Standing Order 106(4), demanding that the committee come to heel on certain issues, our attempt to talk about bringing this committee back together and talk about Bill C-6 as a piece of legislation was an appropriate mediation piece that we could at least get done. I think we'd find ourselves in a pretty unique place, Chair, because although the House has been pretty full of other legislation coming forward, this committee doesn't have a great deal to come forward other than Bill C-6. If we actually finish Bill C-6—surprise, surprise—the opposition sitting in the room may actually have a chance to deal with other things, and maybe even some of their motions, should they wish to. But they've chosen not to take that route and deal with Bill C-6 in that fashion.

We have some other issues. I talked about the hypocrisy of the ethics committee's chair and where he's gone, but there are some other things out there. We have some other issues. If we opened all the books from all the parties, we might also get another clearer look at where the leadership loan situation is on the other side of the—-

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Yes, because I find the same hypocrisy. I find the same difficulty.

In one case, we have a chair of another committee trying to refer what we would call unethical political financing to this committee. Yet we have members of this committee, on many motions from us to open their books and talk about where their election financing comes from and where their election financing is spent, saying, “No, no, not our books, not our books, only the Conservative books.”

So maybe someone...I ask, through you, Chair, the members of the official opposition. Perhaps it can't happen in the House; I know that maybe the chair of the ethics committee isn't one of the people who gets to sit in his chair all the time. They may have to do it in the lobby. But maybe they could ask him what he meant by sending this forward to this committee, because they're refusing to open their books.

You know, we have the case of the sky's-the-limit fundraiser, we have one member of the official opposition saying, “Send it here, open your books, and look at it”, and then we have members of this committee sitting here saying, “We can't open our books and look at all of that stuff, it's only the Conservatives' books that need to be opened.”

I'm sorry, but I'm not sure we can get to the bottom of the sky's-the-limit fundraiser in this committee if we only open the Conservatives' books, because we didn't hold it. As far as I know, none of us even attended. I'd love to play tennis with the Rae boys, but I thought it might get a little pricey.

Maybe through you, Chair, to others on the committee, does anybody know what we got for any of these things at that auction? I'm not sure it ever came back to us. I'm sure after we took off the sky's the limit...any corporation can bid whatever they want, which is truly an illegal donation if that were to happen. Once that came off, because I think they did at the last minute say, “Oh, well, we won't take corporate donations then”, I wonder what the sky's-the-limit donation was.

How did you do on golf with former prime ministers, on hockey games with former goalies, on tennis with former premiers of Ontario? How did you do?

I don't know. I guess we don't have an answer for that.

Sorry, Chair, I guess we'll have to not do it.

I will state just one last time, to clean that whole piece up, the hypocrisy of a chair of the ethics committee bringing forward, or asking it to come here, when we've heard many times here, and asked clearly....

We would already be finished this. I think a member opposite this morning said we would already be done this if we had just gotten to it. We would already be done this. We would already be done Bill C-6. Am I not right? If they had chosen to make it non-partisan and to do a full investigation of election financing, we would already be done. I think we would. This committee works fairly well when it works. We would have had witnesses. We would already be finished.

If we had chosen to open all the books, if we'd chosen to say what's good for the goose is good for the gander—to use a saying that my grandma used to use—then we would have been done.

But what do we get? What do we get? We don't get the opening of everybody's books. No, what we get is the committee wanting to look at only the Conservative Party's books on this issue.

It's not right, not fair, not what we need, and not the way it should have been done.

We've talked about where we started on this, and I can show you, Chair, the minutes of meetings. On Tuesday, September 11, we met. I believe it was on a motion brought forward by Ms. Redman, I believe on a 106(4) motion. Four members of the committee had said, “Why don't we bring this forward?”

On Tuesday, September 11, they brought it forward, and you did, Chair, rule it out of order. I could read your ruling, because you went on at some length about why you chose to rule the way you did. You did some good research and such. But I guess I'll just say that you ruled against them, against the motion. You did so in a procedure that to me still gives me this “when you're right, you're right” feeling. And I still think right should outweigh procedure.

So I still have a problem with the fact that this overruling-the-chair situation goes from a chair making an absolute positive and correct ruling, stating in his ruling why he made it that way....

As you said today, Chair, you don't even have to do that, but you did. In each of these cases you stated why you made the ruling that way. You even showed us, in some cases, the lengths you went to in the case of talking to Mr. Walsh, the legal analyst in the case of the original motion, about trying to get it right. You went to great lengths.

So I still have this problem. I say it smacks of dictatorship. I don't want to use too harsh a term, but I think that's truly where we ended up, Chair.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

So here we are, being brought back again to where I was. You had ruled that the motion was out of order and that we should carry on working on Bill C-6 at that time. It was Bill C-6. It's Bill C-6 still now, and again you've ruled that the motion we're trying to talk about is out of order. Yet the gang of six has come together and overruled you again.

Have they overruled you so that the country will move forward? Have they overruled you so that legislation gets done? Have they overruled you so that Canada becomes a better place? No, clearly not. They've overruled you because it suits their partisan interests to do an investigation on an election that took place, now, clearly two years ago.

We've talked a lot about this in-and-out scheme, or the election financing piece on which they would like to do the investigation. As a matter of fact, through the conversations in this committee, we may have done a great deal of the investigation that this committee would do.

We've brought forward all of the affidavits that have been placed before the courts—where they'll get a proper airing, because it's a court of law rather than a committee of partisan members trying to sling mud—and we've discussed many of them.

We've discussed many examples of the similarity between the election procedures used by all four parties in the last election. We truly have found the exact same activities that the Conservative Party used being used by members of the Liberal Party, the Bloc Party, and the NDP. We found that there weren't any differences. We've certainly shown that the type of financing, the financing from the national party down to riding associations, from EDAs to campaign teams, from campaign teams back to national--that there was a flow of funds in every party's case from one side to the other. It's happened with all of us.

We have also discussed at this committee that the type of advertising that they're trying to find fault with has happened by all parties, that the “group buy”, if you will, the regionalization of advertising, has happened not only in the Conservative Party, but in the Liberal Party, in the Bloc Quebecois, and in the NDP. We saw it in many cases, whether it was in the city of Edmonton or.... I believe there was a group of members.... I'm sorry, you'll have to forgive me, I don't even remember which party it was in New Brunswick where a group of candidates bought a bunch of advertising together that truly talked about their party's performance and talked about things on a much more national scope. They each put their name at the bottom of it, or when it was shown or heard on the radio in each of their own little pieces of the province, it said who had paid for what portion of it, by listing, as we do in elections, that this ad was brought to you by the financial agent of whatever candidate it was.

We've shown instances of how the same type of financing and the same type of advertising happens by all parties. I'm not certain of the investigative need of the rest. I leave that to the will of Elections Canada. They're doing it, and through the courts that we've sent affidavits to, they certainly will do it. They talk about this being some dire need by this committee to actually get to work and do that. I don't get it. I'm not there; I'm lost on the reasons why, when in fact this committee, for the life of itself, has always dealt with legislation when there was legislation.

We actually have a piece of legislation we should be dealing with--it's sitting there waiting--and we're not dealing with it.

I guess what we need to do is look back on what else can be done to break this logjam. We've tried, Chair, but you've been overruled again on making a ruling to move to legislation. I think, rightfully so, the chair of this committee has tried to move Procedure and House Affairs towards actually dealing with legislation.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

I'm there, because we want to talk...the amendment is about something that is very partisan, and I'm sorry, it doesn't just stop there; it stops at elections. Last night we had a vote that could have caused an election, Chair. I think it is very relevant that we talk about what would have happened if an election were caused. I'm pointing out that through the absence in the House of many of the official opposition, it didn't get caused last night, but, boy, if they find their way out of that lobby door once in a while, we might actually get to an election and actually have to deal with Bill C-6 as a piece of election legislation.

It's amazing. I guess we have the cream of the crop, Chair. We have here with us many of those who were actually able to find their way through the lobby door and down the stairs into the House of Commons last night to vote. What I'm asking them to do is to take that same power they seem to have as a select few of the members of the official opposition and use that same power to work on legislation here in this committee.

They're asking to be legislators. They're asking to be here. They were some of the ones who actually stood last night and voted for their amendment. Let's ask them to do the same here. Let's ask them to work on legislation that's needed. We've had Bill C-6 before this committee. We've had witnesses here before this committee. Each of the witnesses we had, even some of the religious background groups we had when we were talking about Bill C-6 in the summer, or September, when we were talking about it, talked about how important they felt it was. They certainly had some views. Most of them had similar views, stating how they weren't asking for the legislation to be interpreted in the way of the Chief Electoral Officer, when he interpreted Bill C-6 to mean that certain people could vote without identifying themselves. The purpose of Bill C-6 is for the use of photo ID to identify yourself at the poll.

Chair, as I have stated before, and I will say again, I show photo ID when I get on an airplane. I show photo ID in many cases. I've had young people say to me that they even have to show photo ID to get into a bar.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

I'm sure the citizens of Hull--Aylmer would be far better represented. However, my name is Mr. Preston.

This is about legislation. This is about doing the work we're sent here to do. It's not like the circus of last night, not like the circus that's happening at other committees; it's the actual work of talking about Bill C-6.

So what happens today? We came forward in good faith to talk about the legislative work that this committee has to do. We came forward with the opportunity to actually talk about legislation in this committee, and even call for a vote, so let's get down to it. This is a Standing Order 106(4) motion we brought forward today because this committee has been wanting to talk about nothing but a motion from the summertime on an election financing situation.

We're giving you that the courts are already looking at that. That's another place for it to actually happen and work out better, but let's get back to the work we can possibly do here. I know there are other issues. There are some pieces of ethics that Mr. Reid wants to bring forward to the committee too, a good two years' worth of work that has been happening there, but let's get back to the work of the committee and talk about Bill C-6.

We offered that today and very quickly explained our case and asked to get to it. What do we get instead? No. It's about being stubborn, apparently. It's about how, if they don't get to do their thing first, we're never going to get to do our thing. If they don't get to sling mud at the Conservative Party on an election financing issue, we're never going to actually get to legislation in this country. We're never going to fix Bill C-6 or be able to vote on it. We're not going to get there.

Mr. Chair, through you, Mr. Dewar is a visitor to our committee. Mr. Dewar mentioned that he comes occasionally to this committee and that the last time he was here we were talking about the same thing. Well, funnily enough, we were, because it just keeps coming forward. We do that instead of dealing with legislation. Even he mentioned that it's legislation he's helped us deal with from time to time too. Here we are again.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

I feel offended now, Marcel.

Sorry, Chair, through you, this is about the will of this committee to actually work on legislation, or to work on some circus the opposition wants to create. Those are the two choices facing us. We came here in very good faith today, and you even heard Mr. Lukiwski call for the question very early in this meeting, so let's get down to work on the legislation this committee has before it. This committee has a history of dealing amicably, through consensus, on legislation. I suggest that if the circus wants to continue elsewhere—they've already taken the ethics committee and done it there—they can do it in other places, but the procedure and House affairs committee has legislation before it, Bill C-6.

Someone across the way, Chair, already mentioned that we talked about this, or Standing Order 106(4), back in September or August, when we came together as a group—even out of schedule—to talk about the need to have meetings on this, and we superceded those meetings with talk on Bill C-6. There were some by-elections about to happen, and we thought this committee's work needed to be done, so we in fact went to the legislation, instead of going off on the witch hunt they wanted us to go—and I'll try not to use “witch hunt” too many times today. We actually went to Bill C-6, because back then we still were functioning as the procedure and House affairs committee should function; we were functioning as a group of legislators sent here by constituents across the country to actually do some work that changes the laws of this country. There we were, and we moved to it; we went to Bill C-6 and we talked about it.

Since then...and I'll agree with the focus across the table, Mr. Chair. Since then, the focus has been, can we start the circus, or can we get the elephants and camels walking down the street in terms of whether we should look into the books of some election?

We talk about this committee doing legislative work, not investigative work. There are other places that certainly could do it. As stated by many of us over the number of times we've had to do this, it is before the courts. There is a body greater than us, a court, that is looking at the decisions that have been brought forward on the so-called in-and-out election financing piece.

We asked today to get back to work. We asked today to stop the games. It's amazing, as I look across at the opposition today, that there are more here today than were in the House last night to vote for their own amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, on Mr. Reid's point of order, I remind you that we do have an agenda for this morning's meeting. Ms. Jennings legitimately had the agenda amended. You ruled that Ms. Jennings' amendment was out of order, as per the chair's prerogative. According to the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, a ruling by the chair on a matter of this nature can be appealed. We did appeal and the ruling was overturned. We are asking you, Mr. Chairman, to proceed with the debate on this motion, as amended.

There is no need for anyone to argue or to engage any kind of systematic obstruction. We do not want to delay passage of Bill C-6. We support this draft legislation. If there are no objections, I move that we stop hurling accusations at one another and stop delaying the committee's work.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Thank you.

My motion would have the committee complete its study into the in-and-out scheme, table its report in the House, and at the meeting immediately following the tabling of this committee's report in the House proceed to consideration of Bill C-6. That's not multiple and simultaneous meetings. It means that whenever the committee proceeds to its investigation into Elections Canada's decision to declare illegitimate Conservative candidate expenses from the 2006 election campaign--once the committee begins, concludes, and files a report, then at the meeting immediately following the tabling of its report in the House, it would proceed to consideration of Bill C-6.

If the Conservatives sitting on this committee wish to continue to filibuster, as they have for months on end, paralyzing the work of this committee, including proceeding to consideration of the government's own legislation, Bill C-6, then they can, but they will be the ones putting their own government's legislative agenda and priorities in jeopardy.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Thank you.

I take note of the comments of Mr. Dewar and of my colleague Mr. Proulx. I find it astonishing that had the government allowed the report of the subcommittee, proposing that the committee investigate the actions of the Conservative Party of Canada during the 2006 election in relation to which Elections Canada refused to reimburse Conservative candidates for illegitimate, according to Elections Canada, election campaign expenses, that study would have been over, a report would have been concluded, and most probably it would have been filed in the House. It would have been done some time ago, and the committee would probably have already proceeded to Bill C-6 and possibly concluded Bill C-6.

I propose an amendment to Mr. Lukiwski's motion. The motion would read, as it does now:

Pursuant to Standing Order 106(4), that the Committee proceed to the consideration of Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (visual identification of voters)

—and then here is where my amendment comes in—

including what witnesses, budget and meeting allocations will be required to complete such a study, and that the above-mentioned Bill C-6 study commence at the meeting of the committee immediately following the committee's completion of its investigations into the actions of the Conservative Party of Canada during the 2006 election, in relation to which Elections Canada has refused to reimburse Conservative candidates for illegitimate election campaign expenses, and the tabling in the House of Commons of the committee's report into the actions of the above-mentioned study.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

We could probably split the time, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to come back to the second report of the subcommittee on agenda and procedure of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. This report was tabled to the main committee.

As a result of various ploys—not ploys, really, but rather administrative tricks—the subcommittee's second report was not able to be tabled for in-depth, proper review by the committee. You are aware of the content of this second report which the committee was supposed to examine and, quite possibly, approve. My colleagues may not necessarily recall the text in its entirety, but the second report stated this, and I quote:

Your Subcommittee met on Tuesday, January 29, 2008, to consider the business of the Committee and agreed to make the following recommendation: That, effective immediately [...] the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs investigate the actions of the Conservative Party of Canada during the 2006 election, in relation to which Elections Canada has refused to reimburse Conservative candidates for illegitimate election campaign expenses.

The recommendation was made at the first meeting held after January 29, therefore in February. The report also said: “That [...] the debate on the motion of Karen Redman [...] take priority over the other work of the Committee”.

Mr. Chairman, the subcommittee on agenda and procedure which you chair had reviewed some outstanding items of business, one of which was consideration of Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (visual identification of voters). It's no secret. This bill was referred to the committee on November 15, 2007.

Mr. Chairman, I have no desire to formally review past actions, but I will do so informally by reminding you that since the month of September, if memory serves me correctly, the “in and out” file has been on the drawing board, so to speak. Through all sorts of manoeuvring, we have managed thus far to keep this item of business in the background to avoid having to do an in-depth, thorough examination.

The Conservative government, which is in the minority on this committee, is proposing to do an end-run around all various procedures in order to ultimately discuss this famous Bill C-6. It is very noble want to get to this bill as soon as possible. However, before we get to it, the majority of committee members—the three opposition parties agreed to this—had agreed that before discussing Bill C-6, the committee should tackle Ms. Redman's motion, which I spoke of earlier, which calls for the committee to investigate the alleged illegitimate spending by Conservative candidates during the 2005-2006 election. This is what the committee wanted. This is not a formal rebuke on my part.

Mr. Chairman, my impression is that it's been decided that you will find some way, along with the Conservative government, to discuss Bill C-6 before we get to anything else. To my mind, it is quite reprehensible for the committee to direct the debate and the work of the subcommittee as it sees fit to do.

Nevertheless, I am prepared to act in good faith, Mr. Chairman. The Liberal Party wants things to proceed smoothly, in keeping with the standing orders. So then, let's see what we can do about the government's motion.

Thank you for your patience and your attention. If you don't mind, I'd like to check your notes after to ensure that everything is accurate.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Basically, it's nothing outlandish. I would suggest that this motion is perfectly in order with the overall mandate of this committee, Mr. Chair. We had discussed on a number of occasions--and I believe the record will show that we had all-party agreement on a number of occasions--that legislation coming before this committee should take precedence in terms of the discussions this committee would engage in.

Bill C-6, the visual identification of voters bill, is one that's been, frankly, sitting in the background for a number of weeks now, if not months. I know that members of this committee, in particular my colleagues from the Bloc Québécois, have stated that they would like to see this bill enacted and become law before the next election. Once again--and I think we've all said this from time to time--in a minority government there is certainly always the possibility of an election being called at any time.

We have certainly seen media speculation running rampant for the last number of months, suggesting, or predicting perhaps, that an election was imminent. At the current time, I suppose the threat of an election has been somewhat defused, because the three main items that were in the news as being potential election events or events that would force an election have now, generally speaking, been defused. Those three, of course, were the Afghanistan motion, Bill C-2, the Tackling Violent Crime Act, and of course the budget, which is an automatic confidence measure.

Although the budget has not passed in its entirety--we have a vote tonight, I think, as everyone knows--there are indications that it will pass. As well, the Afghanistan motion has not been voted upon yet, although as of today it looks as though we're going to be doing that on March 13. Again, there's been no guarantee that the motion as presented by this government will pass. There are indications, certainly, that that will be a motion that will pass, and of course the third potential election-causing matter of business, the Tackling Violent Crime Act, has passed the Senate. So that of course would not be an event that would cause this government to fall.

Since we apparently have a little bit of time, some breathing room, I think it would certainly be appropriate to try to deal with this piece of legislation in an expedient manner so that the decks are cleared, at least with respect to this particular bill, so that come the next election, whenever that might be, the law is in effect, the visual identification requirements as contained in Bill C-6 are actually law, and we can all comply with the law. I know this is something that has been near and dear to my colleagues in the Bloc Québécois.

Mr. Chair, I don't think that really there needs to be too much discussion on this, except to say that it appears the reason that we haven't been able to get to legislation such as this is that there have been some attempts, I would suggest, by members opposite to bring forward motions that are of a highly partisan nature and simply intended only to try to embarrass the government.

There seems to be no other rationale that I can determine for motions such as the proposed motion brought forward by Madam Redman to investigate the Conservative in-and-out advertising scheme. I see no other reason for that motion to be even discussed, other than the fact that this is something the opposition feels it can get some political hay out of. But I think what we need to remember is that, politics and partisanship aside, the role of this committee is to discuss legislation when it comes forward.

I would be hard pressed to think that any member of this committee would find fault with that purpose, and in fact I think it would be almost impossible to find a member of this committee who would disagree with the original position they have put forward, that all legislation pertaining to this committee should take precedence. Yet Bill C-6 has been sort of waiting in the wings for a number of weeks, if not months, and I think that's frankly something that's unfortunate, to say the very least, and something we should rectify at our earliest opportunity.

Therefore, Chair, I think the appropriate manner in which we can advance this is just to call the question, and I ask you to call the question now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

That's correct, including witnesses, the budget--exactly. This meeting is not to discuss Bill C-6 itself, but to consider that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

No, this meeting has been called to discuss whether or not we will discuss Bill C-6 at the next meeting.