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.

First Nations Financial Transparency Act

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House and today it is an honour to rise to debate Bill C-27, the first nations financial transparency act.

Over the last six years, our government has consistently demonstrated our commitment to creating the conditions for a healthier, more self-sufficient aboriginal communities. Fundamental to achieving that are strong, stable and accountable first nations governments. Bill C-27 would strengthen first nations governance by increasing accountability and transparency, giving first nations community members the information they need to make informed choices about their leadership.

Bill C-27 complements Bill S-6, the first nations elections act, which we introduced in December 2011. Together, these pieces of proposed legislation demonstrate democratic practices and would empower first nations people.

First nations residents expect to know how funds are being spent in their communities. Like all Canadians, they want assurance that these funds are being used to improve their quality of life. Bill C-27 would improve their access to the financial statements of their governments and provide information on the salaries and expenses of their elected officials.

Indeed, democracy depends on citizens being able to call their leaders to account and ensure they represent the community's best interests.

Currently, community members may ask for financial information related to their band but unless their leaders choose to release it, it can be difficult for them to access the information required to make informed decisions about their leadership and the direction of their community. There are still community members who have no other option but to contact the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development each year seeking assistance in obtaining this information.

A real or perceived lack of transparency and accountability from first nation leaders can also erode investor confidence and impede a community's ability to take full advantage of economic development opportunities. Ultimately, this delays or can destroy job opportunities and economic progress for the first nation and its members.

I also point out that parliamentarians already have a duty to inform Canadian taxpayers of how their tax dollars are spent, including for first nations.

A question was raised during the second reading debate of the bill on whether public disclosure of financial statements of band-owned businesses would undermine their competitiveness. It is important to note that Bill C-27 would not require each individual business owned by the band to publish its detailed financial statements. Instead, it is only the consolidated financial statements of the first nation that are covered under the proposed legislation. Some of my colleagues, in their speeches in the House today, have reiterated this point. These statements would not, in most cases, reveal any proprietary information that would undermine their competitiveness. There seems to be some misunderstanding on this. I understand that during the committee stage amendments were made to clarify these concerns.

Members of first nations are ultimately the owners of any businesses owned by the band and they have a right to know the financial position of those businesses, just as other Canadians have the right to know about businesses owned by other levels of government. The bill would ensure that this occurs.

Although some first nation-owned businesses may have concerns about providing financial information to the public, it is important to point out that these reporting rules are not our rules but the rules set out by the Public Sector Accounting Board of the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants. In other words, these are the exact same rules that apply to businesses owned in other governments in Canada. To be absolutely clear, the proposed legislation would not create any additional paperwork for first nation governments. They already produce audited financial statements each year as a requirement for their funding agreements with the department, and this bill would not require anything new in that regard.

Similarly, what we are asking of chiefs and councillors is no more than what we ask of ourselves as parliamentarians. For example, the Government of Canada posts its financial statements on the Internet and each of us, as members of Parliament, now disclose our salaries and special allowances to the public as required under the Parliament of Canada Act and the Salaries Act.

Furthermore, Canadians can easily find all of these facts and figures, and much more, since we introduced the Federal Accountability Act. This act has also increased the public's access to information about government activities and spending.

Provincial and territorial governments have adopted similar practices and the vast majority of them have legislation that requires municipal governments to make these documents public, as well. In addition, some provinces, such as Manitoba and Ontario, have extended beyond the legislature to require public sector bodies to disclose the public amount of compensation it pays to its employees over a certain threshold.

In short, under the Indian Act, first nation governments are the only governments in Canada that do not currently have a legislated requirement to make basic financial information public. Again, the bill would address this gap.

Some have noted that not all first nations have websites. This came up in debate in the House today. This is true, and Bill C-27 addresses this point. A first nation will not be required to have its own website as a result of the bill. If a first nation were not able to publish the information electronically, it could ask another organization to post it on the community's behalf. Alternatively, the first nation could ask the department to post the information on its behalf. However, we should be clear that having these documents published on a website does not fulfill a first nation government's obligation to make copies of financial statements available to its members.

Many first nations members do not have easy access to the Internet, a fact the department is also addressing through its connectivity efforts. As a result, first nations will need to continue to find ways to make this information available to their members who do not have Internet access. Many already do this by distributing printed copies to households, or making the information available in readily accessible locations in the community, including band offices.

As I mentioned at the outset, the department receives many requests each year for assistance in obtaining basic financial information from their own first nations government. Enhancing the accountability of band councils more directly to its members would be achieved by making more tools available to its individuals.

All that the bill changes is that first nations government will now join other Canadian governments in sharing basic financial information with its members and other Canadians. Once passed, the bill would also help assure potential investors that they could safely enter into joint financial agreements and business undertakings with first nations. This could and should contribute to social and economic improvements in the lives and livelihoods of first nations members.

I know members will agree that Bill C-27 is a necessary step for empowering and improving the lives of first nations members, and I urge all members of this House to vote in favour of the bill.

I will close with some of the statements I have heard in the House today. There has been some implication that requiring transparency that is similar to other levels of government is somehow paternalistic. I would disagree with that characterization. It is very positive for the bill to undertake the step of moving first nations members in the same direction as other levels of government when it comes to the transparency in the disclosure of financial records to its members and to other Canadians.

I want to note that the proposed legislation is asking that first nations use generally accepted accounting principles, which is consistent with expectations of governments from all other levels. We are not trying to prescribe salaries or the spending habits of first nations communities with Bill C-27. It is simply to move the financial reporting requirements and transparency requirements into alignment with other levels of government across this country.

[Marc Mayrand, Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada]

Thank you.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

I am accompanied today, as the chair indicated, by Mr. François Bernier, the legal services director at Elections Canada.

I was requested by the chair of this committee to assist members in the study of the review and treatment of election financial returns and the key considerations involved in the review of these returns. In discussions prior to my appearance, the chair requested that I provide a detailed explanation of the aspects of the legislative and administrative framework that relate to political financing under the Canada Elections Act and, more specifically, of the treatment of election expenses.

This will be the subject of the first part of the presentation. I hope it will provide the committee with a better understanding of the operating context in which decisions are made regarding reimbursement of electoral expenses. I will then turn to the subject of particular decisions of interest to the committee and explain how they relate to the legislative and administrative framework.

The mandate of Elections Canada is to administer the Canada Elections Act in a fair, consistent, transparent and impartial manner. As an officer of Parliament, my first duty is to serve Parliament and Canadians. While the committee is reviewing the activities of public office holders, I trust it will understand that in my capacity as Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, I can only speak to electoral matters. I will not comment on ongoing investigations of the Commissioner of Elections Canada, or the specifics of the case currently before the Federal Court. As well, I will not deal with any individual cases.

Mr. Chairman, with your concurrence, I will now proceed with the first part of my presentation. The committee has already received a presentation that extends to a number of pages—42 pages, I believe. So I won't read each of those pages, but I will simply make the main comments on the essential aspects of the presentation.

The presentation will contain four parts: first, the objective itself, as well as a part dealing with the key principles underlying the legislation and the administration of that legislation, the key aspects of the legislation, and, lastly, the aspects of the administration of that legislation. I will also provide a brief conclusion.

I think it's fair to say that the first hundred years of federal democracy in Canada have been focused almost exclusively on the conduct of elections and on progressively expanding the franchise--the right to vote--to all Canadian citizens. In fact, the right to vote became a fundamental right protected by the Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982.

This focus continues today, as the agenda of the 39th Parliament attests. For example, Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act, dealt with the appointment of returning officers, who are now the responsibility of the Chief Electoral Officer. It also dealt, under Bill C-31, with the integrity of voting. It also dealt with the issue of proof of residence, under Bill C-18. And it is considering, currently, Bill C-6, which deals with visual ID; Bill C-16, which deals with advanced polling; and Bill C-20, an important piece of legislation that deals with the appointment of senators. This is all to show that there is still a focus on the electoral process and the conduct of elections.

However, over the last 40 years, growing concerns have been expressed with regard to the influence of money in the electoral process. These concerns have led Parliament to incrementally design a regulatory regime to govern the use of money during electoral campaigns. We are now at the point at which Canada is at the forefront among mature democracies in how it regulates the influence of money in election campaigns. This regulatory regime of political financing was initially built in the seventies, and it has since witnessed repeated legislative reform that continues today. Again, this Parliament passed Bill C-2, which deals with contributions and gifts and which banned contributions from corporations and unions. It is also considering another important aspect of the financial regime, under Bill C-29, with regard to loans.

My purpose today will be to deal with a particular and key aspect of our political financing regime, that of election expenses and their treatment by Elections Canada under the Canada Elections Act. More specifically, I will touch on the legislative framework, the administrative framework, and the compliance and enforcement program.

There are certain principles underlying the legislative and administrative framework. First, to maintain public trust, are transparency and fairness. These principles are expressed through various provisions in the act that deal with public disclosure, expense limits, public funding, compliance and enforcement, and, something that is often forgotten, the distinctiveness of political entities. Each has its own regime, with distinct rights and obligations.

Transparency is about disclosure. It's about providing information to electors on candidates, parties, and other entities. It involves, with regard to financial matters, reporting revenues and expenses and the sources of those.

Fairness is the key principle of a healthy democracy. In our democracy, fairness is about allowing political parties' candidates to have an opportunity to present their visions, their policies, and their values to electors. What those are and how they are communicated to electors is the exclusive domain of political parties and candidates. However, legislation seeks to ensure that the competition among political parties and candidates to secure the vote of electors be conducted within certain rules designed to create and maintain a level playing field. One area of legislation, again, over the last 40 years, has been the adoption of rules that will foster this level playing field. These rules deal specifically with how money can be raised and how it can be spent in order for them to present ideas and reach out to electors.

The Canada Elections Act passed it to the CEO to administer these complex rules, with a view to ensuring that key principles are maintained at all times. In doing so, Elections Canada must act fairly and impartially and exercise due diligence at all times. When it finds evidence of non-compliance and possible offences, it must exercise the authorities provided by the legislation in accordance with all the requirements of fairness and due process, within the strict limits of the law. To do otherwise would undermine not only Elections Canada as an institution but also the democratic process itself.

Let me turn now to the key aspect of the legislative framework as it relates to the treatment of election expenses and the role these key principles play in the electoral law.

The relevant aspects of the legislative framework involve key definitions, a brief discussion of duties of official agents, the notion and concept of election expense limits, the concept of transfers among political entities, reporting requirements for those political entities, entitlement to reimbursement, and key differences between parties and candidates. Note that some misunderstand the system and tend to view parties and their candidates as a single entity, yet the law makes clear distinctions and establishes distinct responsibilities, benefits, and obligations for parties and candidates. For the most part, these are treated independently of one another. This is particularly true in disclosure and reporting requirements, which are different for parties and candidates. Access to public funding is different. Spending limits are set differently for candidates and parties. To some extent, rules governing the raising of contributions are different for candidates and parties.

Let's first look at key definitions. Under candidate electoral campaign expenses, there are three key definitions that need to be considered: candidate electoral campaign expenses; candidate election expenses; and candidate personal expenses.

Electoral campaign expenses are expenses reasonably incurred in the election and include election expenses themselves and personal expenses. There are electoral campaign expenses that are neither election expenses nor personal expenses. An example is the audit expense in excess of the subsidy. It is an electoral expense, but it is not an election expense. There is also the rent of an office outside the rent period. For example, when a candidate rents an office before the writ is dropped or carries the office after the polling date, these are electoral campaign expenses, but they are not election expenses.

An election expense includes any cost incurred or non-monetary contribution received to the extent that the property or service for which the cost was incurred or non-money contribution received is used to directly promote or oppose a candidate during an election period. The expression “directly promote” does not refer only to expenses incurred to expressly urge voters to vote for or against a particular candidate. It has a much broader meaning that encompasses all expenses that directly assist in getting a candidate elected. For example, it includes the rental of office space, equipment in that office, the computers, the supplies, and the remuneration of campaign workers during the election period. All such expenses directly promote the candidate and are thus election expenses for the purpose of the act.

The third definition has to do with personal expenses. Personal expenses of a candidate are his or her electoral campaign expenses other than election expenses reasonably incurred in relation to his or her campaign. Personal expenses include travel and living expenses, child care, and similar expenses.

It's important to note that there are three categories of expenses, each with its own definition and standards. Election expenses must generally be disclosed. They are subject to a reimbursement, and they are subject to spending limits. Personal expenses must be disclosed, and they are subject to a reimbursement. Residual expenses that are neither personal nor for an election must be disclosed, but they are not subject to a reimbursement. Again, I mentioned previously the subsidy for audit.

Another key concept in looking at election expenses is the notion of transfer. The act allows specific political entities of the same political affiliation to move resources amongst themselves without being subject to the restriction on the source and amounts of contributions set out in the act. A contribution is the amount of money received that is not repayable; otherwise it would be a loan. It is the amount of money received that is not repayable, or the commercial value of a service or a property, or the use of property or money to the extent that it is provided without charge or at less than commercial value.

Again, this is a new, essential concept--commercial value. How is commercial value defined? It's the lowest amount charged for a property or service by the person who is in the business of providing that good or service. Alternatively, it's what another commercial provider charges for the property or service who is not in that business.

At the end of the electoral campaign, candidates must file an electoral campaign return. That return is an account of all financial transactions for an election. It consists of a form that has 15 pages and is divided into four parts. It's a bit longer than even a tax return, so there's a level of complexity attached to filing those returns.

Let me give you an example of how these concepts can come together. Let's assume that a party pools the purchase of lawn signs for its candidates and offers those lawn signs to candidates. They have the option of accepting the package or turning it down. Let's say one candidate agrees to purchase 1,000 signs for his campaign and that those signs have a value of $10,000; however, the candidate can only afford $2,000. Provided the signs are used during the campaign to promote the candidate, the return will have to show the transaction as follows. First of all, the election expense will be $10,000 for the candidate, because he received those 1,000 signs and used them during the campaign. That's the amount shown as the expense. Within that he will show the paid expense as $2,000. He will show a non-monetary transfer of $8,000, which is the commercial value of the signs that were transferred from the party to the candidate. The amount shown as the expense will be counted against the spending limit and it will be eligible for reimbursement. The amount shown as non-monetary will count against the spending limit, but it will not be reimbursed since nothing was paid for that amount.

This is a very simple example of how those transactions have to be reflected in the return.

To emphasize the critical role of money and the need to rigorously control inflows and outflows and ensure that financial activities are strictly within the constraints of the legislation, the legislation provides or requires that each candidate appoint an official agent. In fact, a candidate cannot officially run as a candidate without having appointed an official agent. This is a must under the legislation.

An official agent is much more than a bookkeeper. In fact, if we can do an analogy, he or she could be seen as a treasurer or a financial comptroller. You have on slide 9 the key duties of an official agent.

Generally, the official agent is responsible for controlling all electoral campaign expenses; that is, for a candidate's campaign, only the official agent or the candidate or someone authorized in writing can incur an electoral campaign expense. So you will understand that to fulfill his or her duties, the official agent must of course be familiar with all the concepts and the definitions I mentioned earlier and must develop a good understanding of the underlying principles of the legislation.

Let me talk briefly about expense limits. The first point to note is that there are separate limits for parties and candidates and that those limits apply to election expenses, whether paid or unpaid, and include the commercial value of non-monetary contributions or transfers.

Elections Canada calculates those limits for each in accordance with a formula set out in the act. I will not go through the specifics of the formula, except to say that, for candidates, that formula takes account of the number of electors, the population density in the riding, and the geography of the riding, and provides an adjustment for inflation.

Spending limits for parties are a little bit simpler to calculate. It's the number of electors in the ridings for which candidates are presented by the party.

For the 39th election—that's slide 13—the average expense limit for candidates per electoral district was a bit over $81,000, and for a registered party that endorsed a candidate in all 308 ridings, the limit was set at a bit over $18 million. What does that mean? One may be tempted to say that in total a party having 308 candidates could spend altogether up to $18 million for the party and up to $24 million, almost $25 million, given the limits of each and every candidate, for a total of $43 million. However, to look at it in this manner would be mistaken, as the law does not consider the political family as one entity but rather, in this case and this example, as 308 distinct, separate entities with their own rights and obligations.

Let me talk briefly about transfers. The Canada Elections Act recognizes the organic link that exists in the family of political entities, allowing them to move funds, goods, and services among themselves without treating those movements of resources as contributions. The provision of resources from one political party to another, which is not specifically provided for under the act, constitutes a contribution and is subject to the eligibility and limits set out in the act.

Transfer of expenses is not permitted, as this would render the distinct limit of parties and candidates meaningless. As you can see, it is absolutely essential to keep all those definitions and concepts as we look through various returns provided at the end of electoral campaigns.

You will find on slide 15 a table showing the transfers, what is allowed and what is not allowed. Clearly, you will see that transfers between parties and candidates are perfectly allowed by the Canada Elections Act. It has some standards, but they can move resources freely between entities.

You will note that for candidates, these movements of resources can start only after they've been officially declared candidates, meaning that their candidacy has been registered with the returning officer. You will also note that transfers to candidates after polling day are allowed only to pay for unpaid claims and for nothing else.

You will find again at slide 16 another way of looking at it. There is a triangle on that slide that shows the relationship between the party, the candidates, and the EDAs, and the respective rights and obligations for each. You will see clearly that the transfer of money, goods, and services among all three entities is allowed. You will also note that the transfer of expenses is not allowed, and you will see that Elections Canada is overseeing, through various programs, how the money flows among entities.

I should point out that for the 39th election, Elections Canada dealt with 15 registered parties that had over 1,200 electoral district associations, and with over 1,600 candidates, each with their respective agents.

On page 17 you will find a table of the transfers reported in Canada through returns for the 39th election. You will see that all parties represented in the House have transferred resources with their affiliated entities. These have taken place between candidates and parties, between candidates and EDAs, and between parties and EDAs.

Motions in Amendment

[Nancy Karetak-Lindell, Liberal, Nunavut, NU]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-21. This has been very contentious legislation, as short as it is.

We have said many times that the Liberal Party supports the repeal of section 67. It is how the bill was drafted, how it was put forward without including the amendments that were proposed by the many witnesses who came before our committee. We have a great deal of trouble with that.

We have made many attempts in the years that I have been here to try to repeal section 67 of the Human Rights Act. Maybe part of the difficulty was that it was put in with other items, for example, in Bill C-6, with which the communities had great trouble. I want it to be on record that we were never against the repeal of section 67, as some of the press coverage has made us out to be.

The two pieces of legislation we are dealing with in the House today brings to light again the very statements of many aboriginal members. We tend to forget there are basic rights that we take for granted in our country, to which people in aboriginal communities do not have access. However, our party will support the two motions that have been put forth.

The point I want to make is there should have been a non-derogation clause in the legislation in the first place. If the Conservative government had put forth this legislation in the same way it did with the specific claims, with cooperation from the Assembly of First Nations, the bill would have been passed in the House by now and would have been put into practice already.

When the minister introduced Bill C-30, he talked about the great cooperation between the Assembly of First Nations and the government to put forth that bill. Again, if the Conservatives had that same kind of consultation and reaching out, the bill probably would have been in better form. As I said, our party will support both Motion No. 1 and Motion No. 2.

Judging by the questions I heard in our committee from some of the government members, they seemed to have great difficulty with understanding collective rights versus individual rights. We asked opposition members that there be some consideration of collective rights. Some people have interpreted that to mean we are giving the bands and, in some cases, the chiefs an out from what repealing section 67 would do.

I beg to differ. As I said in committee and in an earlier speech today, we are quick at looking at the negative of these initiatives, instead of looking at the positives. There could be different considerations that would actually be more beneficial and more appropriate to the people whom this legislation will serve.

One example I used was how we treated our elders. Because I come from a different community, I am not first nations but one of the Inuit from the first peoples of our country, we have very stated understandings in our culture. We respect the elders and we do certain things that cater to elders, which might not be considered in other cultures.

I remember giving one example at committee. When we check in at the airport we see all these different aisles for business class, for people with no baggage and for the regular lineup. I could see in one of our communities that we would have a lineup specifically for elders so they do not have to wait for 20 people ahead of them when they are trying to check in at the airport.

I give that example to show that when we look at different cultures and different ways of doing things it does not always have to be in a negative light. We do have some practices that I think would bring about better communities across this country if they were practised.

We have not survived as a people in some of the harshest climates in this country by not working together. We do many things that are good for the whole community. I know that is a very different understanding from that of a municipality divided into lots where everyone individually owns the lot their house is on. That is not always the case in our communities.

We have to understand that in many ways we think of ourselves as one group of people, not as individuals. Of course, we have come to appreciate the individual rights that we are learning along the way, but again I am stressing that when we look at situations that concern individual rights versus collective rights, all we are asking for is a certain understanding.

We are not saying that we should always rule in favour of collective rights. What we are trying to point out is that there should be some consideration when people come before the tribunal such that the tribunal tries to fully understand the makeup of the community, the customs of the people and the way things have been done traditionally.

I have stated before, and I will state it again, that just because we extend certain rights to people it does not mean they will all exercise them. There needs to be a transition phase that is respectful. In this case, I am very pleased that we were able to see the 36 months. The transition phase needs to educate people on what this means for them.

I live in a community where we can put cases before the tribunal, but we do not always see people taking advantage of that because we have not fully educated the people to let them know what their rights are. That is an ongoing process.

I am very supportive of people being given that opportunity in the first nations communities, just as we are trying to do with other pieces of legislation we are putting forth in the House to improve lives on reserves and in other aboriginal communities to get them to a level playing field.

In the other debate that I was talking in, I could not stress enough that in most cases we are looking for basic needs. We are looking for very basic things that other people take for granted. We want to make sure that first nations are able to participate in those same democratic processes that we have in this country.

I would very much like to see this legislation pass. I know that our party will be supporting it.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in February I asked a question in this House about election expenses. The Conservative government has always been quick to brag about its accountability, but we rarely see that rhetoric in action. One only has to watch the proceedings, or the lack thereof, in the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, of which I am a member, to realize that the government really has no interest in opening itself up to public scrutiny.

Those of us in the opposition are anxious to put aside partisan interests and resume the meetings of the procedure and House affairs committee. This committee has not met in over a month because the Conservative government members have refused to hold additional meetings to investigate their party's alleged scheme to subvert election spending in the 2006 federal election and go over the limits that are set for all parties. This was revealed by the Chief Electoral Officer. As a result of the stubbornness of the government, regular committee meetings have ground to a halt, and even government legislation has been left sitting idle.

Members of the procedure and House affairs committee, and this includes whips of all three opposition parties, have urged the government to return to the work on Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (visual identification of voters). This is just one of many important pieces of government legislation that have been left sitting idle and are not being dealt with by the committee because of the Conservative government's stalemate.

The official opposition is determined to make this minority Parliament work and to have the work of the committees be useful. The Conservative government's fear of accountability should not be allowed to paralyze Parliament. Earlier this year, the three opposition parties united to remove the chair of the procedure and House affairs committee because he was using obstructionist tactics to prevent the parliamentary investigation of his party's in and out scandal. Unfortunately, the new chair who was elected subscribes to the same book of dirty tricks compiled by the Conservative Party.

The Conservative Party has been under investigation by the independent elections commissioner since last spring for allegedly funnelling over $1.2 million in national advertising costs down to regional candidates during the 2006 federal election. This was done in order to circumvent federal election spending limits.

In January, Elections Canada filed an affidavit pointing out examples of how Conservative candidates booked widely different amounts to claim expenses for broadcasts of the same national party ad. It indicated its concern that this scheme was designed to make use of unused local campaign limits to book national campaign expenses rather than to actually fund local campaigns for local advertising.

The Conservative government has literally written the book on how to disrupt democratic operations and to grind parliamentary business to a halt.

Canadians want Parliament to work, and we as Liberals are committed to doing the work that we were elected to perform. Liberals even told the committee chairperson that we were willing to temporarily postpone an examination of the in and out election financing in order to enable the procedure and House affairs committee to make progress on other issues, yet this committee continues to be locked out.

Why is the government going to such great lengths to block an investigation by Elections Canada? When will this important committee get back to work on behalf of Canadians?

[Chief Phil Fontaine]

Mr. Chairman, I made the point as clearly as I could on the matter of consultation. We make a very concerted effort to consult with our people on any and every issue. On this particular issue, you have to remember, we're dealing with a matter that's been 60 years in the making. There have been many and varied attempts by different governments to resolve this issue, and in each attempt there's been some discussion and consultation with our people.

I mentioned that in 1998 we came forward with the joint task force report. Up to that point, that was the best example we could point to of a joint undertaking between government and us. The result of that work, I believe, reflected as accurately as possible what we felt and believed was necessary to bring about a fair and just resolution of the many outstanding claims in the country. That particular undertaking was based on extensive discussions and consultation with our people.

When we were offered an opportunity to do something better, to improve what was on the table at that point--I'm referring to Bill C-6, which was never brought into force, because it didn't reflect the work of this joint task force, and it's good that it wasn't brought into force--we accepted the challenge that was put to us by the government.

We understood that it was not going to address every single issue or concern that had been advanced over the years by various claimant groups. For example, the particular legislation doesn't deal with treaty rights. It doesn't deal with land. It deals with financial compensation, and there's been a threshold included of $150 million. We were comfortable with the offer. We knew that the parameters advanced by the government would, in the main, be acceptable to most claimant groups.

In those areas the legislation would not address specifically, such as large claims, for example, we insisted on another parallel commitment to deal with those issues on the part of the federal government. When you put the two together, we felt it represented the best interests of claimant groups in different parts of the country.

I make the point again: We just didn't have time to do the kind of consultation a number of witnesses have suggested. I don't know if the outcome would have been any different from what we have now if we'd had more time, given what we were presented with. This is a vast improvement over what we have now. I'm pleased to support Bill C-30. There's no question about my support for the bill.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Some are less costly than others, like Bill C-6.

[Professor Bryan Schwartz, Professor, University of Manitoba]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I'm appearing here as an independent academic, which I have been for 26 years. Intermittently in the last eleven years, including in this round, I have been an adviser to the Assembly of the First Nations on the creation of the new specific claims bill. I have some practical experience from that, but any views I express are my own. The Assembly of First Nations is not responsible for them and is certainly free to take a different position on any of these points, but they have graciously permitted me to appear here in my own capacity.

The last time I appeared before a parliamentary committee, it was a Senate committee. It was the committee that produced the Senate report Negotiation or Confrontation: It’s Canada’s Choice, which made a very valuable contribution to this round. Believe me, I had no inside information that anything actually was going to happen. But I did say at the time that in my entire life I had never seen a convergence of elements such as would permit a longstanding and intractable problem to finally be solved. It just seemed to me at the time that everything was coming together.

A lot of work had been done in the past. Some of it had come to naught, but we knew a lot of the pieces that were needed for an independent claims body. Bill C-6 was not a success, but the opposition parties had engaged with the issue and they made a lot of constructive suggestions that were eventually incorporated into this bill.

The basic issue of specific claims, I think, was increasingly recognized--as I colloquially call it--as non-theological. It really doesn't depend on your philosophy, as long as you accept that lawful obligations should be addressed. No matter which party you belong to, most folks think it's the duty of the government to honourably pay its lawful obligations within the larger context of paying down the Canadian national debt generally. All the elements seemed to be right, and here we are a year and a half later, and everything did go right.

I believe that the new specific claims bill that is before you is a tremendous achievement. That doesn't mean that it meets the platonic ideal of what the absolutely impeccable first nations specific claims bill would look like, but I think it is the best agreement, the best piece of legislation achievable, at this point in history. It represents, finally, a successful conclusion of efforts to achieve something like this that has literally taken over 60 years. It would be a great accomplishment to now see it passed into law and passed into law quickly.

My concern, frankly, is that I have a real sense of urgency here. It's a minority Parliament, and anything can happen. I would greatly regret to see this achievement lost and somehow relegated to one other issue in a future Parliament, when we are now so close to finally succeeding after so many years of frustration.

Very briefly, I'll deal with some of the positive features of the bill.

Independence has always been at the core of the debate. The concern was that the federal government had the last say, for all practical purposes, in claims against itself. This bill provides for an independent body. It will be staffed by judges, people trained and expert in making independent decisions. There will be a voice for the Assembly of First Nations in discussing which particular sitting judges will be appointed to the tribunal. That will be done discreetly and according to the terms of the political agreement, because we must respect the dignity of sitting court judges. We don't want public debates about who's good and who's bad for this job. But very significant progress has been made on that issue.

Delay has been a tremendous problem throughout the entire system. Bill C-6, unfortunately, had too many obstacles, too many unilateral choke points for the minister. A creative idea that was made during the Bill C-6 round was to put in fixed timelines, and now we have them. This new bill says that certain stages can only take so long, and then a first nation can move a claim to the next stage. A claim cannot be delayed at the consideration stage by the minister indefinitely. After three years, the first nation has the ability to move it to the tribunal. It is the same thing with a claim that's been stuck in negotiations for more than three years.

With respect to criteria, Bill C-6 made some progress, but there were still some points of very serious omission. One of them was the issue of unilateral undertakings, which had been recognized as a potential source of specific claims in the Guerin case by Chief Justice Dickson. It is very clear now, in the drafting of criteria, that unilateral undertakings that give rise to a legal obligation can be a specific claim.

I know there have been concerns from British Columbia, for example, about Wewaikum claims, a promise by the federal government to carry out a treaty commission report. In my interpretation of this legislation, those are very clearly covered. We were also concerned in the Bill C-6 round about whether pre-Confederation claims were adequately addressed, and there is adequate language in the new draft to address virtually any pre-Confederation claim issue.

Monetary jurisdiction was a very serious concern with Bill C-6. It was sometimes referred to derisively as a small claims commission. The $150 million means that the overwhelming majority of specific claims can be addressed. No federal government to this date has been prepared to proceed without an individual claims cap. Perhaps after a confidence-building process with this new tribunal that can be achieved.

The just treatment of large claims continues to be an issue that I hope will be closely attended to, including by parliamentary committees like this. It is addressed in the political accord, and there's a lot of work still to be done in that. That work in the short run will have to be done outside of legislation, because the $150-million cap means it will not be dealt with. Access to the tribunal will not be provided within the legislation.

One criticism that has been made of the new bill is that the remedial authority of the tribunal is confined to giving money damages. The new tribunal will not have the authority to say “This was your land. It was unlawfully taken away and it's yours again.” No proposal for a new system that has had a buy-in from the federal government over the last eleven years has gone beyond providing for money jurisdiction. Successive federal governments of both stripes have thought that it would be too complicated, too problematic to have an administrative tribunal deciding who owns real property rights, particularly since the federal government doesn't own most of the land to which claims would pertain.

I do want to say that it would underestimate the value of this new bill to have a tunnel vision about the remedial jurisdiction of this new body. Yes, it can only give money damages--that's all the tribunal can do--but before the tribunal makes a decision you have a long process of the claim being considered and opportunities to negotiate. There will be an alternate dispute resolution body to help the parties negotiate. At the negotiation stage the first nation and the federal government are not confined to settling up on the basis of money only. They can be as creative as they wish. The potential that there will be a money award gives an incentive to the federal government to try to negotiate seriously and arrive at creative solutions.

Indeed, after an award is given there is still an opportunity for creative solutions. A band could say, “Well, you gave us our award for $100 million, but actually we would be happier if it was some money and revenue-sharing, or some money and you can find a way where we can get access to some land”. And creative negotiations are possible after an award as well.

So yes, it's a limitation on the jurisdiction of the tribunal. It's a limitation that has never been transcended, even in the model bill, in the 1998 joint task force report. I think one has to recognize that it is a limitation for one specific purpose--what a tribunal can do. It does not limit what the parties can do by way of negotiating a creative settlement before a decision of the tribunal, or afterwards.

Some concern has been expressed about adjudication and adversarial processes. The new system as a whole, not all of which is contained in the bill--some of it will be worked out under the political agreement--will provide for alternate dispute-settling mechanisms, and these will be available at the tribunal stage, not only at the initial filing stage. The rules of the new tribunal do provide for case management and they do provide that a judge can oversee references to mediation, for example.

Sometimes we do a post-mortem when things go wrong. We do it less frequently when things go right, but it's worth doing it in this case. What went right and how can we do it again? In 1998 the joint task force report produced a model bill full of good ideas, many of which are now going to become law if this bill is passed. It was very successful at the technical level: what was missing was sufficient engagement at the highest levels of government.

So officials came up with a really powerful proposal, but government was not ready to seriously move with it at the time. It showed that officials working together can not only engage at the level of concept, but can sit down and wrestle with all the fine details needed to make a functioning system.

The 2003 bill, which is still on the books but hasn't been proclaimed, went off the rails when the dialogue ended even at the technical level. At some point the federal government said, “Consultation is over. Now you're in listening mode. We'll tell you what's happening.” The bill was worked on internally through the federal system. A lot of people in the federal system in good faith said, “This is my problem, that's my problem.” It was sort of an internal negotiation, with the federal government talking to itself. Maybe none of the individual changes seemed to be too bad. You added them all up and ended up with a bill that was simply not acceptable to any significant first nations' constituency.

This time things went right at both the technical and political levels. We had a very successful engagement at the technical level. My colleagues at AFN with whom I worked on this—Candice Metallic, Roger Jones, Tonio Sadik, Vice-Chief Atlee, and so on—at the technical level had a very positive and constructive relationship with federal officials like Sylvia Duquette from INAC, Diana from INAC, Bob Winogron from the Department of Justice, and Jean-Sébastien Rioux, the chief of staff to Minister Prentice.

I can tell you without going into details that there were times of frank and candid exchanges of opinions; it wasn't all group hugs, but it was a very positive engagement in which people were trying really hard to solve technical problems in an honest and forthright manner. I think we were very successful in that respect.

What also made it work was liaison with the highest levels of government. The Prime Minister's staff member, Bruce Carson, was involved in a joint task force committee that oversaw the technical negotiations. That meant when we got stuck on certain points and needed direction, the liaison that was needed between the technical level and the political level worked.

We had commitment at the highest levels of government, and commitment at the technocratic level of government. You need both. It's surprising, but it's a truism of political science that just because the senior levels of government want something doesn't always mean it happens; you need support from the technocrats as well. Technocrats can't make it happen without engagement from the highest political levels. Both happened here.

We had a process of partnership, not only over a few months, but all the way back to the joint task force eleven years ago. I know there's been some criticism that some first nations thought, when they saw the product, they hadn't been consulted enough. I can certainly understand that when you get a new technical bill and have only a few weeks to comment on it, of course you're going to have concerns about whether you've had adequate time to assimilate it.

In fairness, one of the reasons people couldn't see things earlier was because there was a joint agreement that negotiations would work better if they were done confidentially; that it was easier to be candid and try out ideas in a confidential fashion. The federal government has legitimate constitutional sensitivities about sharing legislation in drafting form with outside constituencies. So we had to work under some conditions of confidentiality. It wasn't out of any desire to exclude anyone; it was a necessary part of having the kind of highly detailed engagement in every aspect of the bill that has made it the success I think it is.

I haven't heard all the testimony or seen all the submissions, but it's my understanding from talking to people who have that while there are some conceptual points that people may not agree with—like the $150-million cap—considering the complexity of this bill, there have been very few if any points where people have said “this is just technically wrong”, or “this doesn't make sense”, or “this doesn't add up”.

People on the first nations side don't think there should be an individual claims cap of $150 million; they would like to see no claims cap, and that's a policy disagreement. But if you get to the technical working of a highly complex bill like this, the fact that it seems to have stood up so well to scrutiny and criticism is a real tribute to the process that preceded it.

This process gave the Assembly of First Nations not only an opportunity to vet it, but an opportunity to contribute creatively to the content of the bill.

You can look at the bill and see some creative, innovative features that I think have added to the feeling among first nations that on the whole, while not ideal, this is a fair and legitimate new system. The preamble of this new bill reflects an AFN creative contribution. The idea that there will be an advisory committee to the tribunal in the making of its rules is another AFN contribution.

I've read some of the testimony here. People wonder how elders get a role in this. Well, that will be one opportunity. When the tribunal adopts its own rules, there will be opportunities for all kinds of people to give the benefit of their insight and experience and expertise into contributing to the rules of this tribunal.

We've recognized all along that if all you do is cut and paste the Federal Court rules, this isn't going to work. You need rules of this tribunal that are flexible, expeditious, more informal, so that you can actually get claims settled and not spend eight or ten years litigating or getting caught up in pretrial processes.

The political agreement was a creative contribution from the Assembly of First Nations. It contemplates an ongoing liaison and oversight committee, a forum where the dialogue can continue. It will tackle some of the points on which the first nations believe the current bill is short of the ideal. It will tackle the question of claims above the cap, claims over $150 million, will begin the discussion on what to do about claimants who can't bring a claim under this system because they don't have band status, will deal with the question of additions to reserves, when bands get monetary judgment but want to buy their land back and have it recognized as a reserve.

In 1787 Benjamin Franklin emerged from a drafting convention and was asked by a citizen, “So what did you give us, a monarchy or a republic?” He said, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

The reason I cite that is that, yes, this is a tremendous bill, in my view—and in terms of what's practically achievable here now, not in terms of some kind of theoretical absolute ideal—but even a very sound bill like this will only work in practice if there's follow-up. There's no point in having a system, for example, where claimants have the theoretical ability to access the tribunal but are in no financial situation to do their research, to advocate their claim, or to appear before the tribunal. This liaison and oversight committee is supposed to look at issues such as principles and access to funding. Absent that, the whole system could turn out to be a great disappointment.

For the tribunal rules, you need commitment on both sides, the federal government and the AFN each making their own suggestions as to how these tribunal rules will work. We're hoping that perhaps we can make a joint submission to the tribunal that will contribute to the tribunal's deliberations on how this will work.

I feel a sense of urgency about passing the bill now, before anything can go awry, not because of the bill itself but just because of the macro-politics in which it's located.

The parliamentary process has contributed in a great many ways to its success, from the Senate committee report to the amendments that were made by opposition parties to bills introduced by earlier governments. I think this process has been very useful in giving people a chance to scrutinize and discuss the content of this bill.

But with the greatest respect, I would suggest that the primary and perhaps exclusive focus, unless you can find some technical errors that we made, should be on trying to move the bill through the House of Commons and the Senate stage, say by the end-of-May break, and focusing the attention on what happens next: the “republic, if you can keep it”.

What role can a parliamentary committee make to ensure that this isn't just a Potemkin village kind of statute, but one that makes a real difference? We have the agenda and the political accord. We note what kinds of issues have to be addressed in the months and years ahead: recommendations about this committee supporting the importance of those steps being addressed; supporting the need for the federal government to continue to engage and to provide whatever resources it needs to the Assembly of First Nations and other first nations partners, so that they can consult and contribute; perhaps continuing to exercise an oversight function, having hearings six months or a year from now and asking, “Is this actually working in practice?” That would be a continuation of the very positive role that the parliamentary process has played in the creation of this bill to date.

I'm sorry if I went a little over time, but that's my overview of where we are, from my perspective, on the bill.

Thank you very much.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses.

There was a suggestion earlier here at the committee that the report proves that SMS doesn't work. But my reading of the report brings me to quite a different conclusion. The report actually says that SMS is highly desirable. In fact, recommendation 17 specifically states the high desirability of maintaining SMS and making sure it's implemented properly. That brings me to the question.

Implementation appears to be a big part of the problem here. The report actually distinguishes between organizations such as VIA Rail, CP, and CN. It speaks in glowing terms about VIA. It also speaks favourably about CP, and refers to it making great strides. But when it comes to CN it's highly critical. In fact, it refers to there being a culture of fear within CN, and that employees are afraid to report.

If we're going to get to a point where employees are reporting more often about some of the concerns they have, do we not have to address that culture of fear? I ask that because the report touches briefly on the issue of immunity, and Air Transat has adopted a provision for immunity for its employees when they report incidents. Under former Bill C-6, now Bill C-7, we're legislating that for the aviation industry.

I asked Mr. Lewis that question and didn't get a satisfactory response. So do you see imposing a legislative requirement for immunity as being helpful in moving forward? If not, why not?

Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, for seven months the procedure and House affairs committee has been trying to study election law violations by the Conservative Party while the government members did every procedural trick in the book to stall that committee. Frustrated committee members recently elected a new chair.

My question is for the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London. When will the chair call a meeting to study the elections violations of the Conservative Party, as well as voter identification Bill C-6, which was passed in the House on November 15?

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I first joined this committee in the fall, and since my arrival I've been really disappointed in the manner in which the committee has operated. There was an understanding that we would move forward with legislation. Legislation is of primary importance to Canadians, and in fact to this committee, and that should take precedence, particularly as bills have moved through the House and they must be reviewed by this committee.

Instead I've seen extreme partisanship on behalf of the opposition. They keep coming back to this election financing, and they simply will not let it go. They want to win this point, and they've brushed legislation aside.

I spoke at length about Bill C-6 and how important it was to the last by-elections, how important it is in the upcoming by-elections scheduled for March, and how important it would be in full federal elections. They simply will not move on legislation. They have a partisan issue they want to pursue and they're not going to let it go.

They're trying to hijack the committee. That's basically what it comes down to. To give credibility to this argument, I point out what my colleague, Mr. Lukiwski said: when the law clerk provided his non-partisan, professional advice to the committee, the opposition overruled him. That's remarkable. It's amazing. This is the manner in which they act. They want to hijack the committee. They will use strong-arm tactics in the committee to get their way. When they don't get their way, they get upset; they have a little temper tantrum.

We've seen that again with Monsieur Guimond, even today, raising points of order. In my view, raising a point of order is a privilege that's accorded to MPs. You're actually interrupting debate. You're cutting a member off to make a point of order. I've lost count of the number of times Monsieur Guimond has interjected with a point of order, ground the debate to a halt, and all attention focuses on him. It's not a point of order; it's a point of debate. Then 30 seconds later there's another point of order that's another point of debate.

I don't know how many times your patience has amazed me in the manner in which you have accommodated Monsieur Guimond and these types of, I'll call them, irregularities. I think you should respect the privilege that goes with making a point of order.

I was talking about the opposition hijacking the committee to their own partisan ends, and this is simply the next step. They're unhappy because they haven't had their way yet, so they're going to run roughshod over the committee once again and use strong-arm tactics to force their will upon the committee by ejecting the chair.

I, too, wish that many more of our meetings had been televised. I think Canadians would have seen, Chair, how well you managed this committee in very difficult and challenging circumstances. You've always been professional. You have actually been very careful to recognize people on both sides of the floor. The person who gets his hand up first and has the opportunity to propose a motion has that opportunity to start the debate. That's quite a thing.

Yet I noticed today that you recognized Monsieur Guimond first. You have not always recognized this side. You've recognized Ms. Redman first. There are all sorts of times that you've actually recognized both sides equally and fairly. You've managed the debates in a fair manner. You've corrected people when they've veered into repetition. When they've moved into irrelevance, you've pulled them back and said get back on the point. I think you've been equally firm with all members from all parties.

As I said, the opposition is not happy. All we're seeing here is a little juvenile temper tantrum, because they aren't happy. They're not getting their way. The only reason they're able to get away with it is because they happen to outnumber us on the more rational side.

I think this is a great disservice to Canadians, what's going on here. I will say that taxpayers' money is being used to serve partisan ends instead of studying and moving legislation. I think that is a great shame, and yet the opposition couldn't care less.

Now they're going to chew up more time, more effort, by forcibly ejecting the chair. I am completely opposed to that.

As I said, Chair, I've been on several committees myself, and I have been very impressed with the manner in which you've conducted these meetings in what I call difficult circumstances. I actually think your actions are a model to other chairs.

The opposition, in pulling this tactic today, is simply showing Canadians again that this is a partisan move, that it is a hijacking of this committee, and that it's their way or no way. That's basically the way they're framing this.

You have my full support, Chair, and I thank you for the good work you've done.

We do need to bring this to a vote because I think it's fair that you know where the committee stands with respect to this issue.

Thank you.

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

I'm sure he's listening; it's the foil hat thing.

Through you, Chair, I'm sure you would never think that.

But that's the type of legislative work this committee could be doing. I've given a good vision as to having people here as witnesses and getting that piece of legislation off the table before any other comes.

It's a good thing we're not backlogged with other pieces of legislation from the House. There have been a lot of great justice bills, a fantastic budget, which we've been talking about, and the other stuff the House has been working on. If it had been election financing pieces, or other things that this committee had to work at, it would be getting backlogged. Chair, it's very good that we are not behind in our work, and it's through no fault on this side. As I've already stated, there's the other side that continues to want to bring forward a very partisan issue, instead of working on the legislation.

One more time: if we work on the legislation, we may find ourselves with a gap that we could only fill with their piece of work. I don't know, but if back on September 11 we had actually gone to work on Bill C-6 and finished it, I would guess that we would have had a meeting or two on another topic by now. I offer that to my colleagues in this room, that we could have got there.

You know what? We came close today. I guess it was probably about 11:15 today that Mr. Lukiwski—

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

Oh, well anyway, it can't be that way.

Even if that's the work we're going to do on this committee after we're done with Bill C-6, even if that's where we head.... Although I know Mr. Reid read a list last week of other work we could do, which is appropriate for this committee to actually work on, we're not there yet, and maybe this would have to follow it even, because I would rather see us do the work of the ethics reporting and some of the other stuff this committee has already been working on.

But, Chair, if we got there, we still would have to get there in a fair fashion, in an open fashion, where all books were open, where we really did talk about it all. Even if we did investigate just the Conservative Party piece, I'm not sure how we're going to get the change in the laws, because we would have to see what was happening in other parties and what other people had been doing. If one is doing it one way and another is doing it differently, I'm okay with it, but when we're all doing it the same way, how could we possibly get to changing a piece of legislation when we've only looked at one angle of it?

I don't think that's truly how it would work. We have to look at it in a much more open fashion, Chair. We have to get to the point where we actually deal with the piece of legislation before us, and then perhaps the other pieces of work this committee has, be it private members' business or ethics committee business, or other stuff that will have to happen.

Then if we truly want to ask him about this election financing, we can have Mr. Mayrand here. I think I have a pretty good idea of what Mr. Mayrand will say.

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

Not to worry, Madam Jennings, I'll be happy to answer on the record what you just asked.

You know, each of those motions we have debated, each of those motions that have been brought forward has been about bringing legislation forward. I ask, through you, Chair, to the person who just asked me the question—I'm sure it wasn't rhetorical. The answer was, and has been all along, in each case we've put forward a motion to please, please, get back to legislation, to quit talking about a simple partisan piece. We have even tried, in our own good way, to modify even that motion, which we don't believe we should be talking about, to an open and honest and transparent motion that would include all of us. If we're going to go down that road...and you know what? After we have dealt with Bill C-6, if we have to get there, great, fantastic, let's get there, but let's get there in a non-partisan, open, transparent way where we look at the books of all the parties.

Chair, through you, that's what we've been doing here, and I'm sorry if we have interrupted the partisan path they want to take. I apologize. That's not what we've been trying to do. It's not about them. It's about the legislation before us. We came here today, as I said, in a perfectly good compromise situation with a motion to deal with the legislation before this committee and asked very early in this meeting—hours ago, it seems—to vote on it. Let's talk about that piece of legislation.

As I said, Chair, through the quirks of a 106(4), it wasn't really even to talk about the legislation, it was to talk about talking about the legislation. It was to talk about setting a budget, calling a witness list, and doing the things that are needed to bring Bill C-6 before this committee.

The hoops we have...a guy my size, if you can imagine, jumping through hoops, but the hoops we have to jump through to get to where we want to deal with legislation at this committee...it's becoming infamous. It's just crazy. We're having to deal with this in the minutiae of bringing this legislation forward when the opposite side wants to stop every time we get to the edge, near to the point where we might actually deal with the legislation again, where it just might happen that we actually start doing the work of the people of this country. We amend a motion. We move another motion. We bring another 106(4). Something else is going to happen.

Chair, we've got meetings twice a week with this committee, and what do we ask? What's next? What's happening at the next meeting? I know what I'd like to do. I'd like to sit here and look down at those chairs and see the Chief Electoral Officer and perhaps some representatives from some of the...maybe even the Muslim communities, because that would be good, and some of the people who have written us letters about what would work and what wouldn't work in changing Bill C-6, and some of the people who have to do with election laws in this country. I'd like to ask them questions about how we can move this piece of legislation forward, ask Mr. Mayrand sitting right there in that chair—and probably Ms. Davidson would be with him because she usually is—what trouble they are having with voter ID, what trouble they are having with this piece of legislation. Why can't we move it forward?

I would suspect—I know the members opposite ask fantastic questions when we do this too. Usually, they do a great job in talking to witnesses, and in very, very short order we could write that piece of legislation. We could get to a clause-by-clause situation on Bill C-6 and have a real, true finish to Bill C-6, a piece that, as Mr. Dewar mentioned earlier today, Chair, for you started as Bill C-31, started as another piece of legislation. We could truly get to that point—when we actually are working, getting questions asked and answered as to what the difference is. I don't think we're far, Chair. In reviewing some of the pieces on Bill C-6, I don't think we're but one or two questions away from Mr. Mayrand's answers, what he would like to see different in Bill C-6 to what we have. I don't think we're far, and you know what, the government side doesn't tend to get to go first in most of that questioning, so it might even be found through a question of the opposition, should they be in their chairs during that questioning, Chair. We might get to the answer very early in the first meeting we could have on Bill C-6.

Now, there are other witnesses, and I know they must have put some thought into it, because it was on the orders of the day today that we would also talk about the budget and the witness list for Bill C-6. So I know they must have thought about it, or at least had their staff thinking about who we could get, who else we need to see to complete the act concerning visual identification of voters. Who else do we need to see, Chair?

I'd much rather be sitting here having a good friendly debate and a laugh or two with Mr. Proulx or Mr. Guimond about that, about who we should have. That's what this committee used to do. We honestly used to sit here and talk about what we were going to do next and get to the point of getting the witnesses here with a little good cajoling and “Here's my witness list and here's yours”, and we'd actually come up, at the end of the day—

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

That was perfect, but I think it made my point without me having to read it. I was saying that we came here today to talk about Bill C-6, a piece of legislation, and that we were sidetracked, hijacked, whatever way you want to put it, into saying, “Let's put something ahead of it first.”

I was interrupted and told I was taking theatrical licence or literary licence with it, and I think it clearly states it exactly there, that this is what is being attempted, a hijack of a perfectly good motion to talk about legislation at this committee, take it back off track and talk about something else.

Through the goodness of her heart, Madam Jennings has left in there that we could talk about our motion after the fact. My mama taught me to say thank you, so thank you for leaving that part in there. But what you really did was hijack where we originally were to talk about something that you wanted to talk about.

Answering the point of order, Chair, my point has been well made. I may have been deemed descriptive of it. I may have been adding some of my own words as to somebody yelling out, “No, let's talk about this.” Perhaps the word “no” was not used. However, I think the answer was that it's exactly what happened. We changed a motion to deal with legislation at this committee. All the people at this table answered the call when the orders of the day went out. That's what they were coming here to do. That's what it said. Instead of dealing with that in that fashion, they chose to change it and deal with the amended part.

I won't ask for it to be reread, because it states very clearly that it's about dealing with the in-and-out scheme of some election financing piece from 2006, and when that's all done, it's okay, the people of Canada then will get to deal with legislation that's needed in this country. It's about dealing with the partisan mudslinging first. It's about having to finish that first, and if that's okay, then we'll get to the other.

When and if that happened, what's to stop another amendment or another motion from coming forward, rather than dealing with legislation? I can only assume, since it's been happening at a regular rate and a regular pace, that this would not be the end. There would then be something else that was more important to this committee than legislation. A member of the opposition side would then come forward and go, “Aha!”

They're thinking of it now, Chair. They're coming up with ideas that we could deal with instead of dealing with any pieces of legislation. I think it's unfair to the citizens of this country to think that the opposition members of this committee clearly don't want to deal with the legislation.

I never thought of it this way, but perhaps their full intent is to do exactly that. I've always believe in the goodness in the hearts of men and women, that they truly are here for noble purposes, but perhaps that is the true reason. They actually are here to not do legislation, to not move the good work of Canada forward, to not move legislation that will help make this country a better place going forward. They're actually here to talk about their own issues, not about the issues of the country.

I hope that's not true. I'm not hearing anybody say it's not true over there, but I still believe in the goodness that—

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

I would ask that we read the motion we're currently debating, because it clearly states, although I may have taken a bit of theatrical licence in how I said it, exactly what I just said. We were here to talk about Bill C-6 , and in fact the opposition has put an amendment to the motion that says we're not going to get to talk about legislation; we are going to talk about what we want, and it's the in-and-out scheme.

So could I have the motion read? I believe some of them are missing.

[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.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Colleagues, let's begin our meeting today.

Colleagues, pursuant to Standing Order 106(4), a meeting has been requested by four members of the committee to discuss whether or not they will proceed to the consideration of Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (visual identification of voters) at the following meeting of the committee, and what witnesses and budget and meeting allocations will be required to complete such a study.

Colleagues, the purpose of this meeting, then, is to discuss whether or not the committee will proceed to the consideration of Bill C-6 at the next meeting and how the committee will study it.

I just want to remind members, as we're getting used to these 106(4)s, that ultimately the committee is not being convened today to discuss Bill C-6, but rather to consider whether or not the committee will proceed to the consideration of Bill C-6 at its next meeting, and of course, as indicated in the letter, what witnesses and budget and meeting allocations would be required to complete such a study.

I'm happy to ask one of the signatories to the letter--I don't have the letter in front of me.

Mr. Lukiwski, you're a signatory. Would you kindly move this in the frame of a motion, please?

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I agree with my colleague in some senses that the government sometimes puts us in the position where either we're for it or against it, and we either accept it and we make no amendments, and then we're all put in a very difficult position.

That being said, part of the committee's work is to study this bill, to listen to witnesses such as you. Sometimes amendments to a particular bill can go through quite quickly if all parties agree that substantive amendments can be made, or not-so-substantive amendments can be made, and that sort of thing.

I want to go back to the appointment of judges. We have heard the government in the past saying that the current judges on the bench were too liberal or liberal-minded, and that we needed to appoint judges that were more conservative-minded. We had the Conservative government questioning the decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada and other courts, saying they were too lenient and didn't favour their political ideologies. So I can understand why one had reservations about the government solely being responsible for the appointment of judges without the cooperation or the legislative commitment to have both parties, the aboriginal people and the government, coming forward with recommendations. I can certainly understand your apprehension in that.

Can anybody give me an example of where there is only one judge, at the end of a process with no appeal, making the final decision? I find that troublesome, from my perspective, that there would be a sole judge, with no appeal mechanism after that, making the decision. That is why I think we should have adopted what Bill C-6 says...at least three, so there would be various opinions, varied expertise on the bench listening to this particular case.

Would you agree that three as opposed to one would be an improvement in terms of the tribunal process itself?

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Chair, there was actually another point from the Muslim Canadian Congress. Ms. Hassan said, “Even for women who believe that it is a religious requirement, they would not practise it as rigidly, and if they were asked to comply with a certain regulation, they would. So it's not an issue.”

Again we have, in a different statement, a comment saying that even if it were.... It is interesting that she says, “Even for women who believe that it is a religious requirement”, because earlier she was saying that requirement is not necessarily there, but she's trying to accommodate that in saying that they would not practise it as rigidly, that they would comply with a certain regulation, and that it's not an issue. It only seems to be an issue with Elections Canada. It does not seem to be an issue with the Muslim community. It does not seem to be an issue for the rest of Canadians. So that's why this matter must be addressed, and addressed as a priority issue.

Chair, it's important that Bill C-6 not languish. It's important that Bill C-6 be given the attention it deserves as a bill that has been passed by MPs in the House. Again, this gets--not “again”, actually; this is the first time I'm mentioning it--to the crux of the matter. What gets to the crux of the matter is that MPs are elected by Canadians, and so it is truly right and correct to say that they are the representatives of the people of their constituency. As MPs representing Canadians, we have brought forward this bill concerning the electoral process and the identification of voters.

It is somewhat disconcerting to realize that if the opposition were really sincere in their intention to move with Bill C-6 in this committee--in which we are outvoted--it could have been done a long time ago, and we in fact could have had this out; we could have had it passed into law, and it would beneficially impact elections.

Instead, what we've had to endure is partisan posturing, partisan motions, partisan politics, in trying to take advantage of a situation in which there truly is no advantage. When we tried to level the playing field and tried to say we were acting both according to the letter of the law, which is important, and in the spirit of the law, and that all parties were acting that way, they rebuffed that. They've taken something that could have been addressed in a very efficacious manner and instead have drawn it out into a long process, a process that I think has been detrimental to addressing these more important issues, such as Bill C-6.

I mentioned it is not just Bill C-6. I do have this concern that we actually have a statutory requirement to review the provisions of Bill C-3 by May 11, 2008, so we're talking about a statutory requirement to move ahead. Instead, we're being stalled as a committee in terms of doing what I call real work. This is real work, a statutory obligation. It is real work. We're being stalled by the opposition, which is moving forward with partisan manoeuvres to take advantage of a situation in which all parties have acted in the same manner and in accordance with the law.

There is other work, of course, in front of the committee. There is this one here, the conflict of interest code for members of the House of Commons. There were forms on November 2, 2007; the commissioner sent the committee draft forms for its approval, if you can imagine. We're talking over three months ago. The commissioner also requested the approval of the committee before posting online the public registry. The committee sent a letter to the commissioner regarding the forms under the code, and the commissioner appeared before the subcommittee.

But this is still an open item of business, Chair. Here we have an officer of Parliament who has asked the committee to do some work. And instead, we've been floundering, with opposition motions and subcommittee reports.

Again, to clarify, really to underline what my good friend and colleague Joe Preston was saying at the last meeting, the steering committee itself is quite biased. I respect your presence there, Mr. Chair. But you know, and committee members know, and I hope Canadians will now know after I make this statement--although they could have read Mr. Preston's testimony--that you do not play an active role in terms of determining the business of the committee. In fact, you can't even vote. So it's a very lopsided, one-sided affair on that committee.

Mr. Chair, I'm just pointing out the fact that future work.... Bill C-6 is future work. I'm pointing out that there is other future work and that the steering committee, where some of this other work comes from, is dominated by the opposition. If they really wanted to get some real work done--the important work of the committee--they could do this, they could accomplish this, at the steering committee. Instead, they're launching these partisan-type attacks and trying to take advantage of the process and procedures of the committee for their partisan advantage. This is not to the advantage of Canadians. This is not to the advantage of Parliament. This is to their own partisan advantage.

We have proposed a change to that subcommittee, Mr. Chair. We feel that we should have a voice, not just a body on the committee who can't participate in determining future business and who cannot vote in terms of future business. We feel that we should have an active participant in the subcommittee process, because the subcommittee plays a key role in determining the future business of the committee.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Right. So as I was saying, we've been asked by a stakeholder in this process--I would say a fairly significant stakeholder in this process--to move now, and actually “now” for them, when they made that statement, was back in September. Yet the bill, Bill C-6, has been waylaid. It has been shunted to the side by the opposition members. It's time to get back on track to ensure that we in fact proceed with the business that concerns the electoral process, which is very pertinent to Canadians.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I am so glad. It worries me when my fellow MPs are not clear. That's right. He did understand. It did sink in. That's great, so it's in there. It's been logged in his memory bank.

I was talking about the Muslim Canadian Congress, Chair, and what their viewpoint was on this, and that very important statement they made that it is not a requirement of Islam that Muslim women stay covered. They would be more than willing to lift their veils if that is the requirement. So I was just in the process of underscoring what I consider to be a fairly significant statement by the Muslim Canadian Congress.

They went on, of course, to say:

My question is, how are you going to ensure that the same veiled person is not going to vote a multiple number of times using different identifications? Unless identification can be connected to the person voting, it is useless. So if there isn't legislation in place at the moment for voters to identify themselves visually, there should be, and that's what I'm proposing here.

Again, the president of the Muslim Canadian Congress is very eloquent here in that the president is raising a very valid concern. I think this is the concern that prompted the change in the law in the first place, and that is this whole idea of the identification of the voter. As we know, votes are crucial. We have some MPs who won by a handful of votes. The opposition has some MPs who won by a handful of votes. Every vote counts.

I think, in a sense, Chair, this is something that is taken for granted at times. When an MP wins by 10,000 votes or 20,000 votes, one can see how it can be taken for granted. Oh, it's just a handful of votes; okay, so it's not 12,000, it's 12,000 less a handful. But there are several MPs who won by a handful of votes or to whom a handful of votes would have made a significant difference.

I can certainly speak to that myself. In my riding it was a huge change. It moved from a Liberal MP to a Conservative MP. For your edification--I know you'll be interested in this--in part of the riding it had been 124 years. I'm talking 1882 since the last time a Conservative MP had been elected. When I was elected on election night, it actually unfolded in an interesting way. There are parts of the riding that are very strong in one way and others that are very strong in the other way. So as the results were coming in, it really depended on which parts of the riding were reporting in during the evening. Of course, no one really had visibility on that. All we saw were the overall results showing up on the screen. I started the evening in advance, but then the Liberal candidate took the lead and he held the lead for a good portion of the evening. In fact, some media outlets declared him the winner, so they put the check mark beside his name because he had been ahead for an hour by roughly 1,000 votes.

What's interesting is that at the end of the evening, the remaining polling stations reported in and I started to eat into that lead, much to the delight of those who voted in favour of me, and actually narrowed that gap. Here's where it gets interesting, Chair. At the very end of the evening, and I think mine was one of the last ridings to know definitively who the winner was, I had surged ahead. I won by an avalanche of 200 votes. In my riding 200 votes works out to roughly one vote per ballot box.

Now where does this fit into what I'm talking about today? What I'm talking about today and what the Muslim Canadian Congress brought up was, how are you going to ensure that the same veiled person is not going to vote a multiple number of times using different identifications? We're talking about the integrity of the voting process. I'm saying that certainly I am very sensitive, as I think other MPs would be, especially those who win by a smaller margin, to the integrity of the voting process and this ability to be able to identify voters.

Up until the passage into law regarding identification of voters, it was possible to vote just with your card. You could just say, “Hi, I have this card, and I'm voting”, and you were not obligated to prove that you were who you were. Of course, when you're looking at a 200-vote spread, if things don't go in accordance with the way they are supposed to, this can cause great concern.

I think her concern is valid in that we're talking one vote per ballot box. What if veiled voters went to other boxes to vote and could not be properly identified because of the misunderstanding that now exists in the electoral process? It's a very valid question, because the point I'm trying to make, Chair, is that one vote per ballot box can make the difference. There are other MPs who won by smaller margins than mine, and I would say that their concern would even be more intense regarding this process. So the president of the Muslim Canadian Congress quite rightly said, “So if there isn't legislation in place at the moment for voters to identify themselves visually, there should be...”.

She said this back in September, yet here we are, we're sitting here in February, and basically the bill is stalled. Bill C-6, our solution to this problem, is stalled here in the committee, when in fact I think it could have been dealt with in a very efficacious manner. All we need is a bit of cooperation--

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

The point I'm trying to make is that if we opened up all the books of all the parties, we could have dispensed with this study of election financing. I think that would have been to Ms. Redman's goal. She wants to have a study of election financing, so let's do it and let's get it over with quickly; and by doing so, let's open up all the books, because as soon as we open all the books of every party, Canadians will see there's nothing there. That would take probably less than one meeting. We could then move on with other important business.

So I do want to answer the question directly that was asked of me. I am indeed saying that the opposition has delayed committee business—and I'm talking about committee business being Bill C-6 and the study of other legislation—with this sort of partisan initiative to look at the books of only one party. It just makes no sense.

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

On a point of order, does that have something to do with Bill C-6?

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Yes, you asked for a point of clarification, and what I'm trying to clarify is the fact that I'm saying yes, the opposition MPs delayed the study of Bill C-6, and the reason they did it was for the partisan purposes of launching a study on election financing that actually could have been implemented and completed in a very effective and efficient manner, provided they had accepted our friendly amendment to open all books of all parties. My point was that when we open all the books of all the parties, Canadians will see that all parties have acted in the same manner, that they've done exactly the same thing, and that it is legal.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Oh yes, that's right. Thank you.

To address that, what I'm saying is that the opposition has delayed the study of Bill C-6 and other important legislation. In fact, just to give some weight to what I'm saying, when I look at the outstanding business of the committee, there was a first report of the steering committee, there was a motion, then there was a report from the steering committee, then there was a second report from the steering committee, there was all the debate that ensued from that report, and there was a real obstinacy, to not accepting amendments, to not entertaining all parties opening their books. I'm saying their obstinacy in proceeding with this issue of election financing actually delayed the study of Bill C-6.

So I would have to say yes, the opposition MPs delayed the study of Bill C-6 by trying to force an election financing study that actually we were quite happy to accommodate if we'd open all the books of all the parties. Our position on that is that when all the books are open, everybody, Canadians included, will see that all parties have acted in the same manner, in a legal manner, and in accordance with election financing laws, and that there is no study to be done. That's the key thing. That's why by proceeding that way we would not have actually spent a lot of time doing a study, because the matter would have been rectified rather quickly.

But there's an obstinacy on behalf of the opposition to accept the suggestion—I call it the friendly amendment—to open all books. There's nothing to hide here. We're not criticizing the opposition for their election financing. I'm clarifying why they're—

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Yes.

So I'm saying, Chair, that with the forthcoming byelections in fairly important ridings—and I would argue actually that some of these byelections will take place in communities where there is a significant presence of Muslim women—nothing has really changed since the last byelections. I would imagine that the concerns I commented on earlier in this meeting would pertain today. I would just have to assume that the same concerns exist. I have certainly not heard anything contrary to that.

To me, that means Bill C-6 needs to be treated in a priority fashion and the committee needs to get back on track. The committee needs to ensure that it remains focused on legislation that has such a dramatic impact on our electoral process.

I have a few other things, because they are interesting here. We had Ms. Farzana Hassan. She is the president of the Muslim Canadian Congress and she made some rather pertinent comments as well. She said,

The Muslim Canadian Congress is opposed to the burka or the niqab or the complete veiling of women in public spaces. We are suggesting that the burka be banned, especially in the electoral process in which openness and freedom need to be guaranteed. We need to ensure the integrity of the electoral process. It is imperative that whoever is physically present in the electoral process should be able to identify themselves. It is not a requirement of Islam that Muslim women stay covered completely. They would be more than willing to lift their veils if that is the requirement.

So, Chair, we come back to this point of stakeholders and who this affects the most. What we're hearing here is the Muslim community speaking out. There are important points here where they feel they have been targeted somewhat unfairly, because they never asked for this issue of veiled voting. They never asked for this accommodation, and yet it was somewhat given to them and then it was misunderstood. They feel that the misunderstanding is not in their best interests.

We have some very direct comments here that indicate it is not a requirement. At least this is what the president of the Muslim Canadian Congress says: “It is not a requirement of Islam that Muslim women stay covered completely. They would be more than willing to lift their veils if that is the requirement.”

What I hear there is an appeal to the committee to get on with Bill C-6. Let's get this bill moving. Let's get it through committee.

We'll have to call witnesses, Chair. We'll have to go through the clause-by-clause analysis. It may not take long, because I think we're fairly conversant with Bill C-6.

Again, it surprises me that the opposition has waylaid the committee in that way, because I think when we finally sink our teeth into Bill C-6 and actually move to accomplish our work, we will do so in a very effective and efficient manner. I have no doubt of that.

Actually, to have continually shuffled Bill C-6 off--

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

What I am talking about, Chair, is the work of the committee. The motion I put forward is the work of the committee and how we were getting off base on the work of the committee. That's why I'm bringing it back into moving forward with Bill C-6.

What I'm tying it to is a comment that the opposition is willing to move forward with Bill C-6. I'm saying I don't have a lot of confidence in their intentions and I'm giving an example. This is how it's tying in, because they're saying we should bring this to a vote and we'll get right to it. I'm saying I don't have a lot of confidence because that's not what I have seen.

Instead, what I'm saying is--and this is where it ties in very nicely--we were willing to move without delay on Madam Redman's motion provided the opposition would agree to open their books so we're looking at all parties at the same time when it comes to election financing. As Mr. Lukiwski pointed out, we have all followed the same practices.

Rather than forcing a delay in the business of the committee, if we want to deal with this quickly, let's find some common ground. Let's find some unanimity among the different parties. If this is really a priority issue for the opposition, let's all open our books, let's conduct the study they feel is necessary to conduct for all parties and let's get on with it, do it quickly, get it out of the way, so we can get back to legislation like Bill C-6. This is where I'm tying back in.

That's not what we saw. Instead we saw an intransigence on the part of the opposition MPs in that they simply would not budge from their motion. They will not entertain amendments. They will not entertain friendly amendments. These are friendly amendments. To open all books is a friendly amendment if I ever saw one. Yet I feel, Chair, they turned hostile to that friendly amendment. A hand was offered in friendship, and they bit the hand. It does make one hesitate to offer an olive branch a second time, but I think we would be willing to do so.

I'm making this point again. We need to move ahead with committee business. This is what I am proposing in this motion I have put forward. I think we probably could have accomplished both the study and moving ahead with the legislation if only we could have found some unanimity among the parties instead of this blockheadedness regarding being able to amend their motion so we could look at all parties' books. I think as soon as we open all the books we'll see there is no issue here. The actual time we “would have spent”--it's conditional, “would have spent”--conducting this study would not have been needed.

I did diverge a little to explain the importance of moving ahead with committee business and why I think we could have accomplished both, but let me focus on Bill C-6.

I was talking about different stakeholders, the people who have a valid concern with Elections Canada's interpretation, which has resulted in a solution, Bill C-6, and why we need to move on this, because there are many stakeholders. Many groups have a role to play. They are influenced and affected negatively, I would argue, by the issue, particularly if it remains unaddressed.

Here's something interesting. This was reported in the Montreal Gazette in October 2007. It says: “Most of the Muslim community say so as well. They didn't ask for the ruling that the chief electoral officer made. Nobody had asked for the right to vote with their faces covered. It was a unilateral decision on the part of the chief electoral officer.”

In a sense, I think it shows that there is a widespread understanding, or disagreement, or unhappiness with the ruling of Elections Canada, which in fact turns the eyes of Canadians back to Parliament, turns them back to the MPs.

They quite rightly said, “Listen, you just passed a law. It's not been interpreted well, we don't agree with this interpretation, and yet apparently it's in our favour. What are you going to do about it as parliamentarians?”

Now, as parliamentarians, particularly as the government, we said that we would move forward with Bill C-6. So we worked with opposition parties to do that. We tabled Bill C-6 in the House. It went through first and second reading. So there was debate on this. Different parties commented and had thoughtful comments to make.

They took part in the process in the House to improve the bill. However, we know that an important stage in the life of a bill is its study in committee. Suddenly, all the work stops and Bill C-6 stays there.

It's not front and centre right now. I'm trying to move it front and centre, but it is not front centre right now. This is a matter of concern, because we may have a general election coming up. We definitely will have byelections coming up. So the same concerns that were enunciated last summer during the previous byelections would logically apply to the byelections coming up, because nothing has changed. Bill C-6 has not been passed into law. It hasn't even made it through this committee yet. So fundamentally, there has been no change to the situation that existed last summer. The very concerns that I heard from MPs and from the Liberal opposition party--

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

That's good. Thank you, Chair.

I was in the process of showing the wide-based support there is for proceeding with Bill C-6. The bill addresses an important matter, and there was great concern, particularly at the time, regarding this bill and the interpretation by Elections Canada of the law that had been passed and that resulted in Bill C-6.

I'll move on, Chair, and make reference to Montreal's The Gazette newspaper, where MP Marlene Jennings also supported, I think, the concern that had been expressed when she said, “I think that people showing their faces for identification purposes to vote is fine.” That was in The Gazette of October 24. Again, it shows that wide-based concern.

I've given quotes from all parties here, from all MPs, from leaders and from House leaders, showing that there was concern and that there is still concern, I would have to argue, because it hasn't been rectified yet. The bill is in front of the committee, and this situation has not been rectified.

I think the government has made an excellent effort to address this situation in a direct manner by proposing legislation that would address these widespread concerns, yet this bill is stalled in front of our committee. It's stalled in front of our committee because there are motions moving us away--and I'm going to say that these motions moving us away are from the honourable members of the opposition--from this essential work of the committee. And given what I've read, it is surprising: it is surprising to me, to my colleagues, and to Canadians.

Now, there are more people who have a role in this, Chair.

It isn't just the members who are concerned about the deficiencies of the act or its interpretation; the various communities everywhere, especially the Muslim community, are as well.

They participated. We had some of them come in front of the committee as witnesses so that we in fact could understand.

I think from their point of view, veiled voting primarily impacts the Muslim community--not exclusively so, but primarily so. I think it was wise and prudent of the committee to have witnesses come from the Muslim community so that we could have a much better understanding of their points of view on this, and whether they were concerned about what was happening. Were they for Elections Canada's interpretation or against it?

These are the kinds of things you don't necessarily want to just read about in the paper. As a committee, as part of our work, we invite witnesses here because it allows us to question them and have fruitful discussions to better understand their positions. So I actually think it was a very wise move on behalf of the committee to do so. We had a variety of different witnesses come in front of the committee. We also had a variety of people comment outside the committee, as people are free to do, and to give their opinion. Particularly when it comes to the Muslim community, it can have consequences ethnically or perhaps religiously, and we wanted to understand that better.

One witness who I found very interesting was Mrs. Alia Hogben, executive director of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women. One of the points she made was that there was a perception that this had in fact been framed as a Muslim issue, and she found that to be unfortunate. There was a concern expressed that people would simply focus this in to a very narrow focus group and say it just concerned one group of people.

This is one of the things she said:

From what I understand, Monsieur Mayrand was being well- intentioned and thoughtful about veiled Muslim women. Sadly, this focus has exacerbated the anti-Muslim sentiment and has made this into another bad example of how Muslims are seeking accommodation when, in fact the confusion is the result of unclear directions and the act and its options.

These are interesting comments, particularly from the Muslim community, about this. She actually went on to say:

This issue should be dealt with as a Canadian issue of encouraging voting, and as security versus human rights issues. The rationale for changes becomes understandable if these concerns are addressed for all Canadians. Do not, please, make this an issue for Muslims only, as Muslim women are willing to show their faces. They accept the importance of voting.

This is an important quote coming from the executive director of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women. It would seem there is a perception that the ruling was made to accommodate Muslim women and perhaps their cultural practices, but here we have the executive director of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women actually stating publicly on the record that Muslim women are willing to show their faces, and they accept the importance of voting.

This actually would run contrary to the widespread public perception of the issue at the time. She made an important clarification, and I don't think that it was necessarily lost on the committee. As I said, it was on the record. Committee members were paying close attention when those comments were made, and it has influenced the importance of Bill C-6 in an important manner. It shines light on the need to clarify a way forward and the need to fix this problem, and to fix it in a way that all Canadians can see and that all Canadians can understand, as a hole that has been plugged or an issue that is no longer of concern. This is why Bill C-6 came forward from the House, and this is why it is in front of the committee, but it just seems to lack the support of the opposition in terms of moving it forward.

Mr. Proulx had mentioned that the opposition certainly supports moving immediately to Bill C-6, but I would say I think it is fair to be skeptical, because their actions have said otherwise. Their actions to date have included sidetracking the committee and railroading the committee, simply by force of their numbers. There doesn't seem to be much logical argument to support their position. It just seems to be a numbers game. In other words, there are more opposition members. This is a good point to make. Those of us sitting here know this, but Canadians don't necessarily know this. It's good to remind them that in these types of committees the opposition MPs greatly outnumber the government MPs, and so sometimes debate--

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you.

So I'm going to quote Mr. Godin directly:

We want this to be clear and not misinterpreted. It will be clear: people who want to vote will show their faces. Why not say it like that? That will be much better.

I think Monsieur Godin's words were very well spoken. He feels that it will go a lot better....

That's why I'm surprised that there's been delay from the opposition MPs in coming around to actually discussing Bill C-6. It's a bill that's been referred to the committee for discussion, and yet it's work we have not gotten to, as a result of motions from opposition party members to derail the important work of the committee.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

So I was saying that the members in the House and those around this table are concerned about declining voter turn-out in the electoral process. We'd like to increase turn-out levels because the figures are constantly falling. We're looking for the reasons for that because we would like to provide solutions.

Mr. Van Loan's comment was really relevant. He said that, if the situation remained unresolved, poorly understood, that would undermine public confidence in the electoral process. That's one of the concerns of all members. We've previously spoken about that.

Mr. Van Loan also told the Globe and Mail that we had seen the consequences of that decision in the byelections that were held in Quebec in September. He also said before a committee that, when anyone starts ridiculing the established electoral rules, people begin losing confidence in their electoral system, and he didn't believe that we parliamentarians could let that be done without reacting.

That's why Bill C-6 is really of capital importance. There were some stupid things—

Stupid things were done during the election. People showed up with Darth Vader helmets to take advantage of what people perceived as a loophole or a poor interpretation of the electoral law. They made a mockery of the electoral system. In doing so, they have eroded the confidence of people who didn't do that, who had the good sense to not mock the system in that way, because they ask what's happening with the electoral system if it allows that to even occur. As I mentioned, this is a matter of concern for everybody in this room and everybody in Parliament, which is why we came up with Bill C-6.

That's why we decided to have official meetings here in committee, where the business on the agenda was to study Bill C-6 and to implement a solution as quickly as possible to improve the situation because that situation was utterly unacceptable. As I said, why aren't we on the right track? That's why I'm proud to introduce a motion to ensure that we are on the right track.

I quoted a number of remarks by Mr. Van Loan and my friend Mr. Guimond.

As regards the Liberal Party, I'd like to talk about the opinion of the leader of the official opposition, Stéphane Dion, on veiled voters. This comes from a September Canadian Press article stating that Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion is of the same view and that, in his opinion, it must be possible to identify people who are going to vote. The article states that Mr. Dion said in Vancouver that Elections Canada should assign female staff to the polling stations to identify women under their veils, something a man would not have a right to do.

Mr. Dion also stated that his party did not agree with Elections Canada, which he asked to reverse its decision. He added that, ultimately, a person must be able to be identified at the time of voting.

We see that the concerns are all well expressed and well stated everywhere.

One National Post article states that the Liberal leader, Stéphane Dion, whose party is having trouble finding support in the province, is also opposed to this measure. The Liberal leader says he believes that citizens are required to reveal their identity when they vote in an election. That's why he would like Elections Canada to reverse its decision and to require women to show their faces in order to prove their identity.

The words used to discuss the situation are strong and direct. I've made a few references to Mr. Mayrand's letter stating that Mr. Dion's remarks were not—

They weren't convincing enough to have him change his decision regarding veiled voting.

Stéphane Dion also went on to say that he had a real concern with the byelections. There were byelections at that time, so it wasn't just an esoteric argument, which we had time to consider. There were some very real byelections approaching in which people voted.

The integrity of the electoral process is paramount. If we want Canadians to participate in the electoral process, then we need to ensure that they in fact have a high level of confidence that the electoral process is sound. I would say that of all the laws we pass, some of the most important are those that concern electoral reform, because it affects each one of us, yes, personally.

But I don't think any of us here is vain enough to think we will be MPs for eternity. It also affects the future of our government. MPs come and MPs go. Even for MPs who have served for extremely long terms there comes a point when they go, and a new election determines who will replace them as MPs. If Canadians find fault with the system, then they aren't so interested in participating. Their skepticism increases--it does not decrease--particularly when they see a flagrant mockery of a misapplication of the law.

That's where Bill C-6 is important, because it directly addresses this concern, and it's a concern that was identified by many people.

Just to go on, in La Presse,

here's what it said: Mr. Dion also said he hoped that an amendment would be passed to have all voters vote with their faces uncovered in the next Canadian election. “There has to be an amendment,” he said. “However, that will come in time. Byelections are being held now. We want them to be held in a peaceful atmosphere. We disagree with Elections Canada's decision, but we respect it.”

He quite rightly put his finger on the point that this needed to change not just for the byelections but for the long term. He was recommending an amendment at that time simply to find an immediate solution because of the impending byelections.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

I was just saying that with Bill C-6 in particular, it's obvious that the problems arose last summer when Parliament passed a bill regarding elections and the way in which they were going to be conducted. This bill was not interpreted to the liking of Parliament or members' understanding of the bill they had just passed, and they felt it was perhaps an overstepping by Elections Canada. They were quite clear on that.

I was just acknowledging that as chair, you have tried to seek clarification from Elections Canada. I was commenting that Elections Canada had written you back. Monsieur Mayrand had written back acknowledging the receipt of your letter in which you had informed him of the unanimous motion of the committee—so it was unanimous—calling upon Elections Canada to reverse its decision to allow veiled voting, which was the way he put it.

So there was unanimous consent in the committee to address the issue directly with Monsieur Mayrand, through you, Chair, in a formal manner, that is, through a letter, a letter that was a response, and to which Monsieur Mayrand responded. Once the bill made it through Parliament and was passed into law, we could say it had the support of the House; that's a fair comment to make. And when it was discussed by this committee at that time—and it had the unanimous consent of the committee—I think it's fair to say this was a concern to all parties in the House and to all parliamentarians, just from the point of view of unanimity.

But when he wrote back, Monsieur Mayrand said, “As I indicated in my press conference yesterday”—and he attached the transcript—“The Canada Elections Act provides several ways of voting that do not require the visual comparison of an elector with a photograph, and consequently the choice to unveil is that of the elector. This result flows not from a decision on my part, but from the act, as recently adopted by Parliament“.

Of course, there's great debate on that point. There certainly was great debate at that time on that point. I think the debate now has shown itself in the form of Bill C-6, which addresses this.

Now, what he did go on to say towards the end of his letter was that, “I would be pleased to appear [before] the Committee at your convenience to further discuss the requirements of the Act in this regard and the reasons why I believe an adaptation would not be justified at this time”.

So you had interpreted the letter to be a no to this unanimous motion passed by the committee. Attempts were then made to have Monsieur Mayrand appear before the committee.

Again, underlining the criticality of the issue, there are many influential MPs—I would point out Monsieur Guimond in particular—who basically expressed their opinions on this matter.

For example, my friend from the Bloc, Mr. Guimond, said:

I repeat that the Bloc supports the principle of the bill because it believes that all voters, men and women, must be equal before the law.

It's Mr. Guimond who said that, and I congratulate him on those words. He truly speaks on behalf of his party, the Bloc Québécois. He said this was really a critical problem that concerned not only the members and parties, but also voters across Canada. That's a quotation from Hansard.

But there are other MPs who spoke up at the same time—again, as I said, well-known MPs who have important things to add.

For example, Peter Van Loan, another minister, said that during the recent byelections held in Quebec, the government clearly expressed its disagreement with Elections Canada's decision to let people vote with their faces veiled. He said that in October 2007. His remarks were clear.

He also said he thought it was necessary to ensure that the population continues to have confidence in the electoral process. That's an important remark because we're talking about the public's trust in the electoral process. Members are afraid there is a decline in public trust in the electoral process.

That's why we're trying to improve the situation. We've heard from witnesses and we've engaged in debates to identify the reasons why voter turnout at elections is lower. The numbers—

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

That's fine.

I will just pull back into my main point before I digressed into the details. It was that I myself as an MP had grave concern about what was about to happen at the cocktail party last night. So I would have been very tempted today to drop a motion on the table to say that we should be having a serious look at this, because this is a flagrant overstepping of the law when it comes to election financing. But I controlled myself and instead I said no, what is the focus of this committee? Is it to be chasing after these matters now when we have important legislation on the table? Or is it to actually do the work of the committee?

It is to do the work of the committee. I was just giving an example that all members have this tug at their heartstrings to move off the priorities of the committee and step into other areas, and yet we all must show--I'm just saying, Chair--some self-restraint.

In fact, there's a lot of noise there, and I know people are interested in what I'm saying, and if they showed some self-restraint, they'd be able to hear me. I'm really glad they have earpieces. Thank you.

I'm just saying that it's showing some of this self-restraint. I did that in the best interests of the committee. I think that as MPs we can all do that, and so this is another reason that accentuates why I defined the motion in the way in which I did.

The other thing I would like to comment on is this. I'm actually surprised that Ms. Redman's motion got as much air time as it did and that the committee report got as much air time as it did, because I was reading through some documentation concerning earlier meetings. This committee met in September. It met outside of the normal sitting time for committees, and there was an argument put forward, I believe, by my colleague Mr. Reid, and he was quoting from Marleau and Montpetit. In that argument of his, he was talking particularly to Madam Redman's motion about pursuing the election financing.

One of the things he was bringing out was actually from Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, the sixth edition, page 153, citation 505. It says:

Members are expected to refrain from discussing matters that are before the courts or tribunals which are courts of record. The purpose of this sub judice convention is to protect the parties in a case awaiting or undergoing trial and persons who stand to be affected by the outcome of a judicial inquiry.

It was a fairly pertinent point and I think it was well received, certainly by the chair, but by the committee members, and so I must admit, as I was doing my research, it did surprise me that the committee had moved away from legislation like Bill C-6, as I'm proposing in my motion, and was stumbling into this overgrown field of launching investigations when in fact the matter is indeed before the courts. I think the opposition agrees with me. I don't hear any rebuttal against that. I'm assuming they agree in that regard, Chair.

There are some other points I'd like to bring out regarding the importance of Bill C-6. One of the things is that there was a comment made, again, when the committee was convened during the summer, because Bill C-6 came up and it was acknowledged by most members that Bill C-6 was of critical importance. And it was of critical importance because there were byelections coming, but also because of the uncertainty that was shown regarding this matter.

Here we had the House of Commons passing a bill into law, and when they passed it into law, it was interpreted differently by Elections Canada. This, I argue, caused great confusion. It caused great confusion among all parties because we had all parties commenting on this ruling of Elections Canada regarding veiled voters.

I know that the chair ended up, in good conscience, basically trying to address this issue with Mr. Mayrand. He had addressed a letter to you acknowledging receipt of your letter in which you had informed him of a unanimous motion of the committee—

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

The relevance, Chair, is that I myself am tempted on occasion to step away from what the committee has defined as the core business of the committee. So I'm just giving an example to show that....

Today, for example, I put in a motion that the committee should study Bill C-6. The relevance of this is that I could easily have put in a motion that says we should be looking at this eight-riding cocktail party, which actually would have been an absolute breach of election financing laws. The jingle is, “the sky is your limit” during this auction. This is the Liberal Party that was at work. They basically were saying, Chair...and it's shocking. Don't fall off your chair, please. They were saying that a successful bid—it was an auction—is not a political contribution and is not eligible for a receipt for income tax purposes. Now, that is a flagrant violation of the Canada Elections Act and election laws and a matter of great concern.

They also said, your successful bid will not affect your annual political contribution limit of $1,100, as if there were no limit whatsoever. I'm just trying to basically put, within the parameters, how critical and how important this particular issue is, and that I would have been tempted to step into that realm. But I've controlled myself.

I just want to finish off here quickly on this one issue.

They went on to say that individuals, partnerships, can you imagine corporations and associations--

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I agree with you. According to the rules, I can't. No one can call the question while I have people on my speaking list. And I have people on the speaking list.

He's speaking to the relevance of whether the committee should move immediately to the study of Bill C-6. So I'm going to let the gentleman speak, with the knowledge that there does seem to be some relevance. But you never know what's going to happen until the hands go up or down.

Monsieur Lemieux, please.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I was saying that, as a member, I think that the committee has an important job to do. Personally, I believe we are not on the right track and have not been for a long time. We decided in committee, for example, that the bills that are really important for us, in the committee, and for the government, are also important for Canadians. When I say “government”, I mean each of the members and all the parties that are trying to work together in the House.

We have a real job to do. That is why it's important to focus our efforts on the business that is really important.

I mentioned that there are outstanding matters of business that the committee has not been considering because we've been sidetracked by Madam Redman's motion, which is actually not key to the work of the committee. And I'll say the unfortunate part is that it's not the first time that has come up. There is, of course, the first report of the steering committee, and this has just generated itself into a second report to the steering committee, which of course we were in the process of debating.

But there are actually other pieces of legislation that are very important to the committee and to Canadians. I have brought forward Bill C-6, which is an act to amend the Canada Elections Act, but this is only one piece of legislation, or one, I suppose, important piece of work that we need to do.

For example, I'll just bring up a second one. There's actually a statutory requirement regarding this next piece of business, and that is to review the provisions of Bill C-3, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Income Tax Act, and it concerns the registration of political parties under the Canada Elections Act as a result of the Figueroa case. As a committee, we have a statutory requirement to consider this case and to proceed with it. Instead, we're losing valuable time, so the important work of the committee is stacking up while the opposition is floundering around trying to basically sidetrack the committee in the important work that we are trying to undertake.

I'll say that fortunately today, thanks to my motion, we have an opportunity to work together as a committee to get the committee back on track. It's perfect. I want to explain, though. I'm not too sure that we all agree, and that's why it's going to take some persuasion, I'm sure, because what we have seen from the opposition is that in their actions, Chair, they don't agree. They would rather be moving off into left field in terms of hunting down phantoms as opposed to doing the real work of the committee, and that's why it's important that I take time to explain why I've put my motion forward and why it's important to the committee.

I think it's within the context of how the committee has been operating so far, Chair. For example, I'll bring to light the fact that when I came to the committee.... And I haven't always been on this committee; I wasn't on this committee during the first session. So I'm assuming that some decisions were made during the first session of Parliament with respect to this committee, but certainly they were reiterated once I became a member, because I've certainly heard it not just from our members, but from you, as chair, and from the opposition members as well, that legislation is to take priority.

And why is that? Why would legislation take priority? Because it's in the best service of the House of Commons. We're all trying to work together as MPs, as political parties, to do what's best for Canadians. And I agree that we can have differing opinions, that we can have different points of view. But there are bills that come in front of the House, and they pass...certainly first reading. They go through first and second reading, and they move off to committee. Here we have a very important bill, Bill C-6, in front of our committee, and it's actually not on the agenda.

If we look at the orders of the day, we see it's just wide open--committee business. Yet here is a bill, I would say, of pressing importance because it involves elections, and who knows how close we are to an election. It also impacts byelections. There were byelections in the latter half of last year, but there are more byelections coming up. So here we have a bill that came out of the House of Commons with the support of the majority of MPs. It's come to committee, and it's been stagnating.

It's been sitting here. I'll even use the--

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

Following a discussion with several of my colleagues, I believe this is what happened and this is why Monsieur Lemieux's motion is in fact, one, in order, etc.

Ms. Redman moved that the committee move to.... We had the request by four members. That's right. I moved concurrence in the report of the subcommittee. That was being debated. That was being filibustered by Mr. Preston, I believe. At the end of the meeting, rather than calling the question, you adjourned the meeting.

As a result of that, this is an entirely new meeting, as Mr. Lemieux said. It's committee business, and he had the luck of the draw that he got the floor before anyone else and therefore was able to move his motion, that the committee should immediately move to consider Bill C-6.

I think we should vote on it.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Yes, it's on the same point of order, Mr. Chair.

The order of the day is committee business. The last meeting was adjourned. There is a lot of business and outstanding matters in front of the committee. For example, there is a motion to add a member to the steering committee. There is the first report of the steering committee. There is a whole list of work that is open in front of the committee, and here we are discussing committee business.

The last meeting was adjourned. It was convened for a very specific reason, and the meeting was adjourned--it's over. So the way I see it is that we're back to committee business. And what business does the committee want to discuss?

I'm putting forward a motion to say that we should be reviewing Bill C-6, and I believe this is in accordance with the earlier priorities set by the committee, which were to discuss legislative matters as a priority because that's in the best service of Canadians.

We're not superseding anything here, because we're at the beginning of a meeting. The last meeting was convened for a very specific reason, and then it was adjourned. This is not superseding anything. This is a motion that has been tabled at the beginning of a meeting, under committee business, and in fact, it concerns committee business. So I'd like to see that the motion is actually debated.

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

Filibusters? Well, they are a procedure. They are something this committee uses from time to time when motions or reports are put forward that don't reflect how the committee has been in the past, and that don't reflect democracy, as I was mentioning before, because the government doesn't sit on the committee, except as the chair. Sometimes procedures are all we can use. It is procedure and House affairs. We must use certain procedures to at least draw attention to the inequity of what's happening. We have to use these methods to bring forward...and to somewhat scream out that it's wrong; it's not where we want to be; it's not who we are. This committee isn't that way. We have to sometimes use any methods at our disposal.

I can't believe that Mr. Lukiwski spoke for six and a half hours last week. I was enthralled. It seemed like it was only moments. He does it far better than I do. He spoke for a great length of time, but during that time he brought forward so many good issues that all sides, if they truly sat and listened to them, would agree they were the right things to do.

The answer isn't whether it's this motion or.... Mr. Lukiwski offered an amended motion of all parties last week--we'll even use your wording here, that we're going to “investigate”. I'd rather it say that we “review”. But it's about investigation. Let's make it all parties and all elections, or at least the last couple of elections. Let's make this equitable. Let's not make it about one thing; let's make it about a group. Let's make it about four parties all opening their books and examining the steps they took in the last election.

As I already shared with you today, and Mr. Lukiwski shared last week, we've read in many affidavits about other candidates--some successful, some not. So we're certainly not referring only to successful candidates doing this. Since all parties used these methods--as I said, not always to success--what's there to investigate if it's not all parties? I mean, we've thrown out case after case, example after example of the other parties--and it includes ours, but it's other parties too--using money transferred from national to local, from candidate to riding association, from riding association to candidate. It was used for advertising for regional purposes, for individual purposes, for only that candidate, or for national scheme advertising that affected the local candidate.

We've all done it. Why don't we accept the fact that this should look at all of us? When that investigation is done....

As I said, Chair, I'm not even certain I want that investigation to happen. I'm not certain this committee should do it. I think Elections Canada is already doing it. There's a court case already out there, and that's a far better place for it to be examined.

At any rate, once the day comes that the investigation is completed, it can come back to this committee for regulation and for legislation. We'll look at it then. Procedure and House affairs truly does look at it at that level. It's not about sticking somebody in the eye, it's about looking at the legislation, choosing good legislation, making legislation better so that if we found this to be wrong, it couldn't happen next time.

If we find that, in our affidavits, geez, every party is doing it, well, then, maybe it is something we can do. If it appears that the candidate handbook says it was okay to do, maybe all we simply have to do is verify that this is the case. We looked at it, sent it off and got it checked out by other people, and sure enough all we got back was that it was an okay thing to do: the legislation is okay, and we accept it, but least it's been looked at and come back to this committee as a piece of legislation rather than as a witch hunt.

And that is what we have before us today, Chair, we have a witch hunt. As I've stated, procedure and House affairs obviously is not the type of committee--I hope none of the committees of this House are the type--to take that kind of motion and use it.

Mr. Chair, we've had some substitutes in, so I may share with them that this motion, when it was first brought to this committee, was ruled out of order. You, through a great deal of research, ruled it out of order with help from the law clerk. Your actions were overruled because of the partisan nature here: it's great, it's a good flavour, let's go ahead and investigate it.

But you did do the work that you were supposed to do, Chair. You did it well. But it isn't where we ended up. We ended up with a motion that has been ruled out of order. It isn't the type of motion that this committee usually looks at, and yet it's still here.

And the motion keeps coming back. September 10 was the first day the motion came through, and we've had it back and forth a bunch of times. As I've stated, through the goodness of this committee and the good work it does, we did work on some legislation between that time of September 10 and now. Some legislation came before it, but now we have a motion before the House, today's motion, that is about denying any other work happening, denying the legislation that this committee will work at. Some good legislation in the case of Bill C-6--and some very critical legislation before next election--we can't even look at. The second report of the subcommittee on agenda and procedure simply says that this motion will take priority over all other work of the committee.

Well, Chair, I'll say again--risking repetition--that this doesn't make good common sense. It just doesn't.

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

Yes, I know. I did sample some of the products.

We often looked for isolated areas of the country in which to test products. It used to be the case, in the late 1970s, early 1980s, where that was possible. We picked certain areas of the country where you could actually go and test a product, and then actually do some advertising around it, so that if you were introducing a new sandwich or a new something, only the people in that area heard about it while you tested it. For example, Winnipeg, Manitoba, used to be one of those markets that had its own media influence, and so we could do this there. London, Ontario, was another with its own media, including television, but it didn't spill outwards into the surrounding areas, so you could test products there.

But in the mid-eighties all of this changed and we became far more regional in our advertising reach, and that what this is all about here. That is what we're talking about now with the election buys, the national versus the regional versus the local buys of television particularly.

It's very hard to buy television in a market that's only going to stay right in that market now. There are no walls up outside of London now preventing TV signals from being regionalized. The A-Channel in that market spreads throughout all of southern Ontario. As a matter of fact, they actually have branches in Windsor and in Wingham, so that a TV commercial played in London is actually being played throughout all of southern Ontario. So although it may be a TV commercial done for a local candidate or even, in the case of radio, a radio commercial done for a local candidate and tagged for that local candidate—because that's who is paying for it—it may actually spill into many ridings. If it's on TV in London, there are four London ridings plus the ten other ridings around it that it would spill into, so it's very hard to isolate this.

We have looked at the Elections Canada regulations, of course, and they say that candidates can do commercials that are both local in nature, talking just about the goodness of Tom Lukiwski in Saskatchewan, and national in nature, talking only about the goodness of the Conservative Party and, therefore, on behalf of Tom Lukiwski. He could get elected simply because of the goodness of the Conservative Party only—and it works, apparently, as Tom is sitting here. It must work.

That's not to say it would be difficult to elect you, sir, without advertising. It could happen without it.

But that's the “regionalness”, if there is such a word, of the advertising. If Tom runs a TV commercial in his riding, it spills into neighbouring ridings. It says somewhere in the TV commercial, either visually or through audio, that the ad is approved by the financial agent for Tom Lukiwski, or “I'm Tom Lukiwski, and I approve of this ad”.

It works. It obviously works. Advertising works because we all spend a great deal of money on it. It's not just this side of the table, although we tend to be able to raise a lot more money, but the other side too that spends some of its money on advertising.

As I've said, money can transfer both ways, from national headquarters to local riding associations, and.... The regulations were there in the handbook, saying that was proper. The regulations were there in the election candidates' handbook, saying it was okay to run ads. Did it say what the ads had to be? No. It said the ads could be local in nature or national in nature to promote an issue or a party. We've done all of those things, which is why we scratch our heads at this point and ask how we got here.

We've moved forward, on our own, and are asking Elections Canada to clarify this issue. It's in court. Affidavits have been prepared and have now been given to the courts, and we're discussing the issue.

So that brings me, Chair, back to one of your original rulings. If we could take this back to September 12, I believe you ruled on whether this motion was in order or out of order. One of the things you were looking at was the fact that it was before the courts, that although it's the will and the rule of this House that legislative committees or committees like this standing committee look at legislation, and may even look at laws, we often don't tend to look at matters before the court as a matter of not influencing them. It's unwritten, if you will—though it may actually be written, because I haven't read all the books—that we just don't do it, that we don't talk about matters before the courts.

And you hear this answer a lot, that a matter is before the court; therefore, it can't be discussed. I don't think this committee or any other would want to influence the outcome of a trial or a procedure before the courts by talking about it in committee and calling witnesses forward.

I know the opposition would love that to happen. They'd love to have a trial about it here and a trial about it in court, and a trial about it in the newspapers, if possible, too, because it's about scandal to them. It's not about truth. It's not about justice. It's not about finding the way things should work. It's about scandalizing the issues so that eventually you cheapen the brand, the brand of your opponent.

It works. I don't disagree with their method. It works. I don't think it's what Canadians would like to see happen. As we've talked about in this issue, and I guess if you simply watch the House we talk about in other issues, here we are at this committee trying to talk about an issue that is before the courts.

As I said, Chair, you once ruled that it was out of order, and I remind you again that immediately after you ruled it out of order they challenged the chair. It's the first time I'd seen that done at a committee, and it was a bit disconcerting that it was possible that somebody made a ruling—you gathered the information even from the law clerk so that you had a legal element to why your motion was out of order—and yet just by a show of hands.... I think we even actually asked for a recorded vote, and I suppose if I had time I could look and see who voted which way, but I think it's pretty easy to figure out.

That's right, they're admitting to it, Chair. They're admitting clearly that regardless of whether the motion was out of order or not—because I can think we can safely say it was—you ruled it was, and a wise person like you wouldn't make a mistake like that, so the motion was out of order. Your ruling was immediately overturned.

Here we are again trying to deal with something that's before the courts. I'm not certain what this would do for us. We're looking to have an investigation, as the motion says, of the actions for election campaign expenses. We want to investigate that as a committee.

I know we call witnesses before committee often on legislation. If we're looking at legislation—for example, the legislation we should be dealing with, Bill C-6.—I know that as we have dealt with it we've called witnesses forward in the past, whether it's the Chief Electoral Officer or some of his associates, and we asked them questions such as, if this legislation goes through, what it would do, how it would happen, and how they would deal with it.

We then try to find interested parties usually who would be affected by it. I remember on the investigation of Bill C-6 we brought forward some of the church groups and other religious groups to talk to them about what they thought about it, and we certainly got great input from them. They told us that voter ID or identified voters is happening in other places in this world and it works. So that's what this committee does: we investigate it.

I have trouble thinking of what we'll do on this. We all want to be Perry Mason. I think we all grew up watching television and thinking we could be that prosecutor or that defence attorney who breaks down a witness on the stand and gets them to admit to something, and that's truly how I envisioned this.

This isn't about investigating to make a piece of legislation right. This isn't about investigating or asking pertinent questions of a group on the subject matter of a piece of legislation. This isn't about that. This isn't about just gathering information so that at the end of the day we can make a report or pass a piece of legislation and say yes, we've done our job properly, we've come up with legislation that works, we think we've covered all the ends and angles, and we've come up with what will work.

This is about investigating election financing. It's not about looking at the regulations of election financing. Has anybody asked for that? I've not heard the suggestion of looking at election financing regulations. That's what this committee does. We do it very well. If we wanted to change the Canada Elections Act, we'd do that well. We've done it on many pieces of legislation. That's truly what this committee is for. Elections Canada falls under procedure and House affairs. And so we could do that.

Did someone say we should look at the Elections Canada financing act or the legislative part of advertising in an election campaign? No, that's not what we've been asked. That's not what's asked here. Let's pick up some mud and throw it at the other guy. That's what's being asked here. It's not about looking at whether the legislation works or not, it's about whether I can play gotcha politics with the other guy. That's what this is about.

Instead of gotcha, we've offered go-ahead politics. We've said let's look at it. If the result is that maybe we want to look at advertising regulations on election financing, if indeed that's what we want to do, if that's the result, if that's the end game, if that's where we want to end up, then let's look at it. Let's open up all the books to see what we've all done. Let's look at what's happened over the more than...I think Mr. Lukiwski's motion said 2000, 2004, and 2006 as a range of elections, so we could look at the last three elections.

That's probably a good range to look at to see if there's something in those regulations, if there's something in the Canada Elections Act, if there's something in election advertising, if there's something in the election financing pieces that we would like to change, that this committee would like to look at.

Is there something? I don't know, I suppose there is. It might have to end up being a legislative change to election financing, election advertising, so in the next election this won't occur, or we'll do it a different way.

I know right now in the House--I sat there yesterday--we were talking about loans. As we speak, there's a piece of legislation before the House on loans--good piece, and it sounds as if it's the right thing to do. Instead of being able to get around the Elections Act from a donation point of view, we need to make it so you don't get around it by just going out and getting loans and using them as donations beyond the limits that might otherwise be there.

So we found a loophole, we found something we needed to look at. We found something that was being used by people in a way that perhaps circumvented the actual rules of Elections Canada. In its wisdom, this party, this government, and this House is moving forward on changes to that, so the loans situation won't be there the next time. It's important.

As a group we've asked, instead of this motion to move forward, that all books get opened, that we look at it in a fulsome way, that we look at everybody's method of campaigning. I know we may all campaign differently and we may all structure our advertising and our election finances slightly differently, but in the affidavits that Mr. Lukiwski read in over the last week, there certainly seem to be an awful lot of similarities among what we do as parties.

My party and the parties opposite do a couple of things in common. We often will transfer money from what we would call party headquarters to local campaigns, or to local EDAs, electoral district associations, and therefore transfer it from the EDA to the campaign, or from a campaign to an EDA and from an EDA to the national and vice versa. There's the opportunity to transfer in all those directions.

Is that common only to one party? I don't think so. I think we read in some affidavits that it happens in most parties.

Are there similarities in the advertising? Yes, there seem to be. There seems to be mention of a regional ad buy in New Brunswick that I believe the Liberal Party used whereby eight to ten candidates all signed on. They all decided they would say the same things and the only difference would be the tag at the bottom of the ad or the audio tag in the radio ads, so there's a group buy put together by the national party, I believe. The ad was put together by a group, and they all paid into it out of their own...or the national paid for it and they all returned money to the national, or the national paid for it and they sent the money in an invoice to the local campaigns and then the local campaigns sent the money and the invoices back. It's a trail, but good on you, for Elections Canada follows it. It's pretty easy. Our affidavits stated it pretty clearly.

I think there was also a case in Edmonton whereby another group of candidates, people who wanted to be MPs, did exactly the same thing. They put an ad buy together because they were buying advertising that had to do with a region. The city of Edmonton has far more than one riding--ten, if I'm not mistaken--and they all contributed and they all ran ads.

I'm certain if we looked we could find that the Conservative Party did certain regional buys also. That's part of what I think this is about. So are we saying that this stuff isn't done? No. There's no denial here. We're not saying it's not done; we're saying it's done by everyone. We're saying we should open the books and let everyone have a good, hard look at them.

I still question whether this is the proper place for such a discussion. I question whether we should be doing this at the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. I suggest that the matter would be better dealt with by Elections Canada and the courts. If, from that investigation, we find a need for legislative change or regulation change, then this committee would be the place to do it. This committee would be the place for discussion of the matter as well as testimony by witnesses, who would include the commissioner of Canada Elections and the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada. They could come and explain what they found, what the result was, and how they determined it.

Then we could change the legislation, if necessary. Let us get to the work that this committee truly does, which is working on legislation. If we determine a practice to be incorrect, we can prevent it. However, if it has worked for all, if it's in the handbook, maybe the answer is to leave the legislation alone. Maybe we should simply be more educational: tell people what's happening and how it works. Maybe that's the answer. I don't know.

But the investigative part—the looking into it, the digging—is this the job of this committee? I think not. I've looked at the type of work that this committee has done in the past. Although I haven't been here as long as some others have, I can't find cases of our doing investigative work of this type. Normally the legislation is brought to us and we investigate it and discuss it. But I'm not sure it's the job of this committee to do this other type of investigation.

I know that the movers of this motion and the rest of the opposition would like it to happen. It's a chance to stir up the muck on this issue. But the real answer is that it's not been done here before. It's not what we do. It's not what we've agreed as a committee to do in the past. Therefore, I really think that it's not the right way for this committee to go.

This is why we're moving in this direction. We can't see it happening in the direction suggested by the motion. The motion is saying that somebody did something wrong, that we should find that person guilty and then investigate. This is not the way the courts work. It's not the way investigations work, even at Elections Canada. We're talking about investigating and finding wrong, rather than the other way around. This motion finds fault and then promotes an investigation for the sake of publicity. I don't think that's what we really want to do.

As for the subcommittee on agenda and procedure of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, I'm not certain that's what they meant to do either. I can't know what's in their heads, but I can't believe that they agreed to do this. I think if I gave them the chance, they would jump up, agree with me, and admit they were wrong.

I gave a gap there, just in case anybody actually wanted to jump up and register their agreement. Apparently, though, they're not in a jumping mood today.

Mr. Chair, we must come to our senses at this committee. I was so happy to be allowed to sit on this committee, so happy for the chance to research it and to see what it does in the House of Commons. I called it the grandaddy of all committees. It's the committee all committees want to be. It has such prestigious members—including the whips of most of the parties. This committee has done so much in the past.

It's my understanding that other committees of the House can't be struck without this committee doing it. This committee must assign the members to the other committees. We have that air of distinction, if you will. It's the pride factor of sitting on procedure and House affairs, that it's better than others. I'm not saying it from an arrogant point of view. It is something that has always been, that this committee sets the pattern for what happens on other committees. It looks at the rules and regulations of this House, the Standing Orders and the other orders this House follows, and it massages those; it makes those right. It makes it so this place can actually be functional.

So I find great distress, Chair, that at this time this committee is sitting here and it's not functioning. This committee, the granddaddy of all committees, is sitting here looking at a motion that doesn't even truly fall into anything this committee has ever done before. It just doesn't. It isn't there. It isn't what we've done. It isn't who we are. We're better than this motion, Chair. I know this committee is better.

In the past we were able to agree by consensus on a lot of issues. We certainly had nays and yeas, but we really have worked hard on being bigger than this. And now what have we done? Well, let's make it all about partisan politics. Let's make it all about finding fault with one guy so I can look better in the eyes of others.

I don't think anybody back home really thinks that's what we're about or that it's why we want to be here. That's not what we do here. That's not what procedure and House affairs committee is.

I hope it's not what other committees are either. But having been other places, I do realize there can be some of that there. But procedure and House affairs, as we've said, really does deal with issues of legislation and the Standing Orders and--

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

That may be. Perhaps I could speak just a little to that point of order while I'm here, Chair.

I know that you get to sit there as part of the steering committee, and I know you do well, much as you're sitting here during part of this committee. I know in your heart you're participating, but I know how much you don't get to participate. You must be the chair. You have to be impartial, and you have to sit there and deal with the items of the committee, not the items of the legislation.

As I've heard in the past, and certainly when we were in opposition, chairs participating in committee, actually taking over and asking.... You do a little of that, Chair. You're a wise man. You sit there, and you consider both sides of the issue and make sure that we stay straight. So as my honourable colleague opposite says, yes, you are there as part of that committee. I will give you that, but are you an active part? I think not. I think that the democracy of the committee, the active work of the committee is done only by opposition members.

Well, I think I can show us proof that their second report says that pretty clearly. Their second report says, and I've said it a couple of times here...maybe I'm not loud enough today. I'll try to be a little louder, I guess. It says, “take priority over the other work of the Committee.”

That's what the steering committee said to do. I know that if you had been an active part of the committee, you'd never have allowed that to come through that way. So there we are: a committee that is undemocratic for a committee that works on the democracy of this country. I think the people back home may have some problem with that.

What else could the committee be working on? Obviously we've talked in the past about the video clips of the House of Commons proceedings and other video recording. I think that probably falls on the same level as what the steering committee brought forward as work. It's busy work. It's something we could work on between pieces of legislation. It's not what we could work on instead of legislation, Chair; it's what we could work on. It does need to be done. It's not to say it's not important, and I'm certain some of the people who do the videotaping around here and other people who'd like to use those video clips outside of this House need a ruling on it from this committee. They need it to be.... It's a procedure. It's a House affair. It fits in there. It's stuff we do. But is it legislation? I don't think it's legislation, but we need to get at it.

We mentioned parliamentary security. That is still ongoing. We're still talking about it. I know that from another committee, at which I still deal with it too, but this committee had it on there.

I mentioned also that this committee did some great work on the conflict of interest codes. It comes to us. Many members of Parliament talked to us about how frustrated they were with the conflict of interest codes, how onerous it had become, how some of the work that was being asked of us on conflict of interest, we really couldn't.... And during conversations of this committee, it has been said that this is a very important piece. We have to deal with the conflict of interest in the House. It is important that we do that. It's important that we have rules and regulations in place for us to deal with it. But it was onerous. It was different. It was difficult. Documents had been designed as if they were designed by committee, Chair. They were just onerous and beyond belief, and this committee and some of its members, as a subcommittee, have really gone to work and done some good work on this.

Chair, I will ask you, have we been able to present the conflict of interest code for members back to this committee--the work that has been done by the subcommittee? I don't think it has come back to us yet. Why? Because we're busy dealing with busy work instead of getting to the work we're supposed to be doing.

We're also awaiting some decisions on the Senate tenure bill, on consultations with electors and their preferences for appointments to the Senate. That's another piece of legislation that's out there. We'll soon need to deal with democratic representation. That's the number of seats in the House. There are some distribution issues, Chair, that we'll need to look at. These are all things that this committee will have to deal with so that they can go to the House and decisions can be made.

We, in fact, Chair, have lots of other work. We have, in my opinion, Chair, a couple of point-form pages' worth of work that we could be doing instead of what we're currently doing. I think if you read the list out loud to a group of Canadians—whether they're my constituents, yours, or someone else's—they might pick a few things other than what we're talking about here today. I really do. They've asked us to come here and get things done in this minority Parliament.

If you spend time in the House—and I know we'll be voting on something else again tonight—we have been passing legislation. Legislation has been going through this House, and even in a minority situation we've been agreeing to move forward to get things done, whether they're great budget items like tax relief for Canadians or something else. Canadians expect us to deal with the legislative workload we have. That's what we're here for.

If that's the expectation, how is it that the steering committee has gone so far astray? If that's truly what we're supposed to be working on, how is it that the steering committee has found only one item suitable for discussion by this committee? It didn't say, let's work on legislation; let's work on Bill C-6; let's move the ethics code, the conflict of interest code forward. It didn't say, if possible let's look at the security. It didn't give a list. It didn't even give a “what's next”. It gave a “this is the only thing this committee will work on until hell freezes over” statement at the bottom of the second report of the Standing Committee on Agenda and Procedure--take priority over all other work of the committee.

What about the other work? If this is to take priority, what else is there? Do we really need to come to work if that's all there is? I'd like to come to work to do something. I'd like to come to work on Bill C-6 and voter ID. I'd like to give the integrity of the next election in this country a greater emphasis. I can't believe that the members of the steering committee—and obviously those they represent, because there's one from each party, so there are other people on this committee that the members of steering committee represent—seriously sat there and decided, let's work on this instead of important stuff. But they must have, because it says right there that they held a meeting: “Your Subcommittee met on Tuesday, January 29, 2008, to consider the business of the Committee and agreed to make the following recommendations”. It says right there. That's what they've said.

Did they really meet and at some point in the meeting say, that's all we need to talk about; that's the business of our committee; that's where we're at; that's the most important thing? If you hear disbelief in my voice, you're right. I just can't believe that's where they headed. I can't believe they thought that was the right way to go. I can't believe they thought Canadians think that talking about this issue at length is the way to go. I just can't believe that a steering committee made up of members of the opposition--of course, chaired by our member, but no member of the government was capable of contributing--met and agreed---

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

Chair, through you to whoever cares, could the steering committee actually have met and not discussed legislation? Chair, I just can't believe that the steering committee could actually have met and not said at some point.... I recognize that it may have been way down their list, and I recognize that the agenda probably went witch hunt, talk about witch hunt, some more about witch hunt, maybe legislation, and then finish off with witch hunt. But the legislation was still in there.

There's legislation before this committee that needs to be dealt with. I can't imagine the steering committee on scheduling for this committee not talking about legislation at its steering committee meetings. But I get the report, I get the second report--they've obviously met before, because this is the second report--and there's no legislation on here, Chair. There's no legislation. It says, “Your Subcommittee met on Tuesday, January 29, 2008, to consider the business of the Committee and agreed to make the following recommendation”.

So they considered the business of this committee. What is the business of this committee? What's the title of this committee? It is the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. Here we are. We're talking about procedure and House affairs. Election financing I don't find anywhere in there, but we'll get there. I'll make this circle.

They're going to consider the business of the committee. So wouldn't legislation come under procedure and House affairs? I would think it might.

There's Bill C-6 on voter identification. There it is. Look, there's a whole bill. It's not very big. In English it's eight pages, eight pages of what we wanted to do to send a message to the Chief Electoral Officer--I thank you for this, Mr. Lukiwski, because I didn't bring my copy of it today--and en français, huit pages.

We're still there.

The answer here is, we didn't. We must have. This committee must have spoken of legislation when it met.

I know that this government is not represented on the steering committee. I'm not sure if I've made that point, but we're not on that committee. You sit there and chair it, so Chair, through you to the other members who might be on the committee.... And I'm not sure I could point them out. They probably should be wearing some sort of identification so they can be blamed. It is the steering committee, so a scarlet S, or an R, for railroad, might work.

However, they met, and we know in our hearts—we can't know for sure because of the in camera nature of the subcommittee—that they must have spoken of legislation. I can't believe that the good men and women of the opposition would only speak of the witch hunt that they're attempting to reach. No, they must have said that there is legislation. But do you know what? They chose not to deal with legislation. A group of men and women on that steering committee chose to deal only with this issue. They wanted it to take priority over the other work of the committee.

This is through you, Chair, to Mr. Lukiwski. He spoke last week about the fact that even on the subject matter they want to bring forward, if it was covered, we could and would say, “Let's look at all of us. Let's open all our books. Let's do this study if it needs to be done.”

I suggest that we deal with the legislation first, because it just makes sense that good legislators would come here and deal with legislation first. But when we're done.... I think we could do it in short order. We could deal with Bill C-6 and some of the other items that are outstanding matters before this committee and then actually get to this, actually get to an element of what this motion says.

But let's at least, then, add fairness to it. Let's at least add some common sense to it. If we're going to look at election financing, let's look at it all. We've said that we would throw open our books. Here they are. There they are, done. Let's all do it. Let's do it all. Let's look at all of them. No, that's not what the steering committee wants. It's not even what the members of the whole committee want. No, they would rather be the schoolyard bullies and say that unless they get their way, they're taking their ball and going home.

It doesn't have anything to do with looking at anybody's books. It only has to do with slinging as much mud as possible.

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

I come equipped with my own earpieces. I blame it on rock and roll music in my youth, but that's a topic for another day, or maybe it's a topic for this day.

Now that hearing has been brought up at the committee, we could talk a bit about that. I'm not certain we're hearing Canadians or the constituents back home. I'm not sure that any of them are yelling, “Could you please go to Ottawa and go on a witch hunt?” I've been home, and I don't think they've said that. I read my newspapers, even from here, and I don't think anybody in the riding is saying, “Please go to Ottawa and join in that witch hunt that's happening in the procedure and House affairs committee.” Nobody is saying that; nobody, I tell you. I haven't heard it once.

We may think this is important, and I can only assume that the opposition members believe that's the case, because otherwise why would they do this?

I've not heard from one member of the general public that we should look at this election spending thing. They want us to fix it. If it's broken, fix it. If it's not, then leave it alone and get on with your work and get the other stuff done. That's what we are sent here to do. We're actually sent here to work on legislation.

Now, did the steering committee say that? Let me read the report. It doesn't say anything about legislation anywhere in this report. Did you want me to read it out loud, Chair? I could read it, but the answer is no, they didn't say let's look at legislation.

They had to have discussed the legislation that is before this committee. They had to have discussed it at the steering committee. I know the steering committee is held in camera and therefore can't be.... I wasn't there, so I think I can talk about it. I recognize that perhaps the members who were there can't talk about it, because it's held in camera, but they had to have discussed the legislation. I can't believe the incompetence of the steering committee would be such that they would not talk about the legislation before this committee.

Can you believe it, Chair? You might have been there, so I know you can't say, and I know you have no voice at the committee either. You can't say before, during, or after.... But I assume legislation was talked about. I can't believe the steering committee would have sat there and said, “You know, we have Bill C-6 still. We should...”.

How could you sit at the steering committee for procedure and House affairs and say, “We have a piece of legislation that's important in this country. It is so important it has come back to this committee a couple of times to make sure that the Chief Electoral Officer gets it.” But it came back here. Do you know what they must have said at steering committee? They must have said it doesn't matter.

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

I think we did bring it up, but maybe we had another one of those railroad things going on whereby they voted against us.

So here we are, not represented. Here I am. I know I'm just a small guy, literally. We are not represented on this committee. I know it's hard for me to be invisible. I know it's tough. But what am I? I'm hard to hide.

I think there is an injustice in this place. I think this committee didn't think it through, that we could be well on to doing things that we could be a lot prouder of. We could really, truly be there if we had just fixed that flaw in the steering committee way back then.

Am I saying it would have made a difference in this case? I don't know. It would still only have been one government member against the world. I could break into song there, I guess, but it would still only be that. But at least I would have felt we had a say. I would have thought we had a way forward. I could hold my head up and say that democracy prevailed, we were there, I was right, I made my case, however the schedule went this way. But we don't even get that. We don't even get the chance to be there.

Something is wrong with this, Chair. Something is really wrong when the steering committee is only allowed to look at one piece and say that's what they want, to grab the bit in their teeth and just run with it and that's what they want and that's what they're going to do, come hell or high water. If you don't mind an old saying, Chair, that's what we're going to work on. I've got to tell you, here we are, and it doesn't feel like high water, Chair.

We've just got one topic we're going to deal with. That's what they're saying to us. Only one thing matters to us. The people of Canada be damned; there's only one thing we're going to talk about and that is the topic we're here to talk about today, the motion that's been put forward that this steering committee will only look at Ms. Redman's motion and it will take priority over the other work of the committee.

If indeed we were working on legislation, I could almost live with that last sentence. Working on legislation will take priority over all the work of the committee. I think if the steering committee had come forward and said that, I might even have said that's all right. If we're working on legislation, that could take priority over the other work.

But it didn't say that. It didn't say we'd work on Bill C-6, the piece of legislation that's before us. It didn't talk about the performance report of the office of the Chief Electoral Officer that's before this committee that needs to be looked at, at some point. It's another piece of work for this committee. Did they say we should work on that? No.

It says that this motion, this witch hunt, as Mr. Lukiwski talked about last week, this unfairness that this committee should investigate the actions.... Not look at, not determine, not decide whether there is a piece of election financing that needs to be changed, as is truly the purview of this committee, to look at regulations that have to do with elections.... No, let's investigate a party.

And not all of them. No, Chair. I know you're surprised. You have a surprised look on your face. Not four parties, not look at all parties, not even look at maybe five, six, seven parties. There are other parties out there besides the four represented in this House. Don't look at them all. Don't look at how other people have done elections--no, no, no. Let's just drill down to only one thing. Let's only look at one thing.

I know it's unbelievable. It's the action of bullies in the schoolyard. It's exactly that. It's saying we're only going to do one thing, and we're going to gang up and make sure it happens whether you want it to or not. It's a sad commentary on this place. It truly is.

The word “partisan” comes up in our vocabulary here--

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

Well, there was about half an hour's worth of comment from near you that day.

They didn't send us here to do this. They really didn't. But when you're dealt the hand that you know is a winning hand, that you know has right on your side.... We're here to do the job, and we know we are. When you know you're right, it's not hard to sit and talk and to make your points and make them well. It's just not hard to do it when you know you have right on your side.

We do in this case. The steering committee--the railroad committee of procedure and House affairs--got together and said, let's only look at one thing. What did I say? Yes, “take priority over the other work of the Committee”. I can't believe that even in the most arrogant of situations, someone would say that for any matter, even if it were a good piece of legislation, we'd write that it could take priority over all of the other work of the committee.

What if, God forbid, something comes up? Well, sorry, this witch hunt takes priority. It doesn't matter what it is. It doesn't matter that there's legislation. It doesn't matter that there are other things that this committee could clearly look at that are far more under its jurisdiction. No, it does not matter. The members of the subcommittee on agenda and procedure of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs decided there's only one thing it wanted to look at. There's only one thing that mattered to them.

I wonder if the people back in their ridings think this is the most important thing that could ever work for them. I just wonder that, because I would guess that if they went home and listened, they might find out differently—Mr. Chair, through you, rather than talking to them. I think they might find out that they've made a mistake, that being partisan in a committee that always worked together from a collegial point of view is probably not the way to go.

What else could we be working on? I've mentioned Bill C-6, and an important piece of legislation it is. Ms. Redman talked this morning about the sound of election in the air, and she's right. There's lots of talk. Wouldn't we like to have that piece of legislation done? Wouldn't we like to ensure that there isn't the same opportunity for fraudulent voting that there may have been before Bill C-6, before we go to the next general election? Wouldn't we like to make sure that was the case? This committee, when it was working on that piece of legislation, said that. We said yes, we need to work on this; we need to make sure we cover this, that we get this done. Why did we do that?

I know, Monsieur Godin, your party may have just a slightly different view on what I'm saying, but the rest all said yes. The rest all said that we need to have voter ID, that we need to have some sort of photo ID system.

There are variances. There are different ways. We talked about different ways to do it, but we all thought that this was an important piece of legislation to be done before we got to the next election. Do you know what? On September 10, when we first talked about it, there were some byelections coming up, so we had to hurry. We felt that we really needed to get to Bill C-6 before these byelections. Well, they've come and gone. Those people have been elected, and here we sit now getting ready for a general election, perhaps.

This very committee worked on a piece of legislation establishing a fixed election date, the date for our next elections: the third Monday in October in the fourth year following every election. So that's October 19, 2009, a fixed election date. There we have it. We no longer allow the Prime Minister, as was done in the past under Liberal prime ministers, to just pick and choose, as they chose, to have an election whenever they felt it was time. We have a Prime Minister with honour now who says, “Let's fix a date and that's what I'll be held to.” Right? Unless, of course, confidence comes forward and the opposition decides that they want an election more than the people of Canada want one. There you go.

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

Okay, I'll answer the question from across the table.

We're not represented. Yes, Mr. Goodyear gets to sit there and chair the committee, but as the great chair he is, he sits there and runs the meeting. He doesn't have input. The input is from the steering committee. The committee does the work around the chair. The chair is there to make sure the procedures and rules are followed. Of course, none of us is allowed to be at the steering committee, so we can't say exactly what happens. I can only assume, knowing Mr. Goodyear as I do, that he follows those rules. That's our representation at the committee: he's the chair.

So where's the government representation? Where's the person on the steering committee arguing for legislation to move forward? Where is the sober second thought, if you will, or the sober thought we need to look at legislation rather than just at this witch hunt that's been on the table for eight months? Well, apparently it isn't there.

The opposition parties like it that way. They can put together a steering committee report and make it look almost official. It comes out on good letterhead, and it says, here's what we're going to look at. Yet one party has been completely missed in the putting together of that report. It has not even been discussed fully by all parties. It just says that this is what we're going to do. It's been predecided.

I understand minority governments. I have, in my short career, been on both sides--in the opposition and now in government in a minority situation--and I understand there are hardships sometimes in really trying to get your point through and get your point across. But I do understand very clearly that the voters of this country send us here to be legislators, to make legislation. I think this committee in its past has clearly done that. It has put legislation first and said, here's what we should work on, and we'll do other studies.

I know, Chair, that other studies have taken place during gaps between legislation. This committee working together, working in a very collegial manner, has also done a great study of some of the ethics situations regarding some of the documents needed from members of Parliament for reporting. I know that we even started, Mr. Chair, a study of security at one point, and moved that off onto the board.

We've done other things. This committee can do other things. That's not the point I'm making. At every point, we've always moved back to the fact that legislation takes precedence. Legislation is one of the most important things we can come up with as a committee, and we really, truly need to do that. When legislation is before us, I won't say we should take our partisan hats off, because we'll always still want our own political philosophies to work on those pieces of legislation, but at least we take off our jackets and work hard on the legislation to make sure we move forward in this country with corrective legislation.

The one we're talking about, Bill C-6, the one that is still waiting for us from the summer, is about using visual ID for people voting. I know it's been very critical and has been talked about across this country and certainly been the topic of headlines and news stories, because there are many people out there...and I can only speak for those who have spoken to me personally in my own riding, who say they have to show ID to get on an airplane. Some of the young people in my riding point out to me that they have to show ID to even get into a bar. I don't have to. Apparently I'm old enough now, and appear to be old enough that it doesn't happen to me, but I know Madam Redman would obviously be asked for ID.

The most important thing is that the casting of a vote in an election in this country did not require the showing of photo ID. It didn't happen, and I don't get it. We've asked that it does. We've put forward legislation. We put forward what we thought was very good legislation, saying that you would need to show photo ID. I used the point once with the Chief Electoral Officer, asking what part of photo ID he didn't understand, but he had some trouble with it. So this committee went back to work. We tried to say that if you show a piece of photo ID you may want to have to show the face to make sure that worked.

So this is part of Bill C-6 and where we are now. We hope we've corrected the piece we needed to correct. The people back in my riding have asked me why that wouldn't be important. Why wouldn't showing ID to be able to vote in this country be an important thing?

So here we sit with a piece of legislation waiting, but this committee wants to go on a more partisan witch hunt instead, and by its railroad committee--I guess I mean steering committee--it has put this report forward.

I think the fairness piece comes out pretty clearly. I think people back home understand this. This isn't about being able to gang up and get your way. It's not about being a bully in the school yard and if you don't get your way you're taking your ball and going home. But that's how they're acting. I don't believe it myself, because I know them to be honourable women and gentlemen, but I assume it's due to direction from their party. I know that at least the official opposition has some trouble with leadership, but they must be getting their orders from somewhere. So we've talked about how long it's been and how we're waiting and that this motion keeps coming forward, and it's something we have to deal with.

The real point is that my friend Mr. Lukiwski spoke at length a couple of times in the last week or so, and I thought he made some very good points. I'm going to share some of them with you again, because obviously they didn't make it all the way through.

Mr. Lukiwski talked about how we would immediately, even though this committee has not...or in the past has not shown cases of going into this type of investigation. This committee is more about legislation and regulations than it is about investigating...“frivolous” complaints is what I want to say, and I guess I'll leave it that way.

But we would do that. We would. We even said, “Let's get at 'er.” The idea here is let's make it so that we can look at all parties at the same time and see if there are corrections needed in the rules and regulations of election financing. We would come up with a report, after this committee looked at it, with something that we could do.

No, that isn't what the steering committee asked us. That isn't what the motion we're now discussing asks us to get to. The motion asks us to go on a witch hunt, asks us to go one-sided and only look at one thing. It isn't what the work of this committee is and it isn't what we've done in the past.

As a matter of fact, maybe I should remind this committee that at the first meeting, September 10, when we were called back again by a Standing Order 106(4) motion to come here and talk about this, the chair.... I've already said what a good chair we have, and how he tends to look at all sides of the issue. But in this one, on that day, on September 10, I put forward a motion that we move directly to dealing with Bill C-6 instead. And we did. We started talking about Bill C-6, and we did a little bit of it.

We actually then got back to this motion, this witch hunt motion, and the chair said, “You know what? I don't understand. I'm not certain I like the motion. I'm not sure it's clear. I'm not sure it's what this committee does. I think there is some prejudice in it, since it's before the courts. I need the chance to go away and research this tonight.”

So while the rest of us had fun and frolic here in Ottawa in early September, I know that the chair spent the night looking at the motion, really thinking about whether this motion was in order and whether it actually passed.

And guess what? Maybe you won't remember....

Mr. Chair, I see the members from the other side talking amongst themselves, and I want to make sure they hear this point. I really want you to watch them and make sure they are actually hearing this.

I remember you once giving us, Mr. Chair, a very thoughtful, well-thought-out, well-constructed, and well-researched motion. You even brought the law clerk in on this, to talk about this motion. You ruled very clearly that it was out of order. The motion did not fit what a motion would do for the procedure and House affairs committee.

This was a really clear piece, and I know you spent a great deal of time on it. You really looked at those questions: is this something this committee should do, is the motion in order, and is there some prejudice when cases are before the courts?

And guess what? I know you will remember, Chair, and I'm hoping the members opposite also will remember, that you came back and told us that with the advice of the law clerk, this motion was out of order. It did not fit. It was not something we should do. It was clearly prejudicial, and we should not accept this motion.

But guess what happened? Boy, it was like a flash. You said it was out of order. They challenged your ruling and, like another railroad, just ran right over top of your ruling. They said that the advice, and the time you took to make sure the ruling was in order, the time you took to make sure the ruling was fit for this committee, didn't matter.

Mr. Chair, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs has always been a fine institution, and it should be careful as to what it considers and what it doesn't consider. You said no, and you did a great job. You took the time and brought together the resources. I know that some of the researchers spent some time with you on it.

It was September 10 when you went away to research it, and I don't think we came back until September 12. You really wanted that time, that 48 hours, to look at the cause and effect of putting forward a motion like this.

Well, there it was. You ruled against it. You said, “This is not fine. In the tradition of procedure and House affairs, it's not the type of thing this committee looks at. It is just wrong. It doesn't fit the mandate.” Boy, no sooner had the words come out of your mouth than somebody over there said, “I challenge the ruling of the committee”, and--boom--a vote happened, and it was done. We're still looking at it.

Madam Redman said it this morning; we're still looking at that, Chair. We 're still looking at it eight months later. It still doesn't make it right. It still doesn't make the ruling wrong. The ruling was that this was an out-of-order motion. In a real place with good common sense, that motion would have died that day. It might have had to be rewritten. I'm not saying it couldn't have been fixed, but there was no attempt to even fix it. There was just an attempt to pile it back on. Here it is. Sorry, we don't care that you don't like it, Chair. We don't care that you spent all night looking at it. We don't care that the law clerk also agrees with you or found parts of it out of order. We don't care about any of that. We don't care if it's the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do. It's the partisan thing to do. We're going to slam it forward, Mr. Chair. Over your dead body, we're bringing it forward. That's what they said to you.

I can't believe it, because I know you to be a great person. I can't believe that they would do something like that to the chair of this committee, but they did. That was back in September. So we want to talk eight months of moving forward.

Well, eight months ago, this thing died. It was brought to an end. And there it was, brought back to life because the bullies in the school yard said that if we didn't play with their ball, they were going home. That's what they said.

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, I think Mr. Godin is starting to see the light.

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

I would like to comment and give my friend Mr. Lukiwski a small break. I guess he would be next, since you saw his hand at the same time as mine.

We are now talking about a motion to concur in the report. I'd like to make a few points. The first one is that this is a report of a steering committee that we've certainly asked for some changes on over time, so I'll start with the thought that we're talking about a motion from a steering committee on which the government is not represented.

Chair, I know you chair the steering committee, but there's no discussion at the table from government members of the steering committee. It seems a bit of a railroad, a bit of a forced issue when a committee that's deciding the agenda of the whole committee of procedure and House affairs does not have a representative from the government. Most people would find it somewhat odd and somewhat discouraging that although the steering committee meets to set the agenda, the way this committee will move forward, the voice of one whole section of the House of Commons is not even heard at that meeting. I would certainly challenge any of the members from across the table to say differently, that the government had a voice at the steering committee meeting that set the agenda.

I know this committee tends to work very collegially for the most part and usually comes to a consensus as to how it will work or what it will work on. Apparently the steering committee does not work the same way. The thought process in the past has been that this committee would always look at legislation that comes before it. I know the people of my riding, Elgin--Middlesex--London, and I would be reasonably assured that most ridings around the country send us here to do the job of legislators, to work on legislation. I think it goes without saying that this is exactly what we're sent here to do.

In looking at the matters the steering committee had to look at, we certainly have legislation. It's been said a couple of times, even this morning, that this matter has been before us since September. You may have thought about it in August, but we first met on September 10. So from September on we've been looking at this matter, but at that very meeting, that September 10 meeting, as we moved toward what the steering committee is railroading before us now, the talk of Madam Redman's motion, we talked about Bill C-6, we talked about bill voting. At that time there was an issue before us, a piece of legislation to use photo ID to identify voters, and it is still before this committee.

So I guess what's being said by the notorious six or seven signatories to the meeting is that legislation doesn't matter anymore, that this committee can only work on its railroad issues, on what's being forced down the throat of this committee by a steering committee on which the Conservative Party is not even represented, where the Government of Canada is not even represented.

I've been on this committee through this whole House, and we started off as a very collegial committee. I continue to think of procedure and House affairs as the committee of all committees. It's the committee that assigns members to other committees. To put it in a nice way, it's the committee that all other committees strive to be. We've lost that. This group has now become a partisan pack of wolves that continues to want to put forward....

Criminal Code

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak briefly to Bill C-13. This bill is similar to Bill C-23, which was debated in the House.

I may be a rookie here but I remember Bill C-23 very well. We were in favour of the bill but the government decided to dissolve Parliament. So here we are, debating the same bill all over again, except that the number has changed.

The context is fairly important as we start, Bill C-13 is really Bill C-23. It contains so many important new aspects to make our criminal justice system work more equitably and to modernize it. It is why I was proud as a member of the Liberal justice team and as a member of the Liberal justice committee team to approve it and to send it on for eventual approval and royal assent.

Alas, the Prime Minister and his team decided that they were afraid of the environment. Their new Minister of the Environment had failed so miserably to act on the environment that they had to scuttle the whole Parliament because they were afraid of a couple of bills that might change things. In that mess, in that melee unfortunately, this good justice bill was killed and had to be reintroduced again.

One might ask, what difference does it make? It makes a difference to people who care about the criminal justice system. It may not mean a lot to people, but one of the biggest things we could have done in the last two years that I have been here would have been to modernize and make more effectual our criminal justice system, to move the maximum fine to be imposed for any summary conviction offence from $2,000 to $10,000.

A $2,000 fine is within the means of many people, but a $10,000 fine for a serious summary conviction offence, that does not warrant jail time, is a serious fine and might very well have a deterrent effect on those type of crimes for which a fine is appropriate.

There were many other amendments, which could be in effect and the law in the country now, that were just simply thrown away.

Language rights are very important in my province of New Brunswick which is officially a bilingual province. I represent the city of Moncton, which is an officially bilingual city. This is bread and butter for New Brunswick politicians. It is disturbing to me that the parliamentary secretary, when asked why Bill C-23, which contained many provisions to improve the delivery of justice services in both official languages was not given the priority of other bills, turned his answer to Bill C-2 and the tackling violent crime bill.

I asked why Bill C-23, which everybody agreed upon, was given second shrift to Bill C-2 and of course why was Bill C-2 killed?

This love child of the Conservative justice agenda, why was it killed by the Prime Minister? Was he so afraid of other bills which showed the incompetency of his own ministers?

It seems shocking to me. It included: Bill C-10, involving mandatory minimums which was a bill improved upon at committee and which had passed the House; Bill C-22, which modernized issues surrounding the age of consent and the age of protection, and provided for the first time a close in age exemption which made the bill very palatable in protecting young people; Bill C-32, for which Mothers Against Drunk Driving had been clamouring for some time; and, Bill C-35, a reverse onus on bail provisions which in effect codified the existing treatment of the law by jurists in the country, jurists who are exceptional jurists.

I have said this for two years. It seems like I just got here but I am here again defending judges and saying that they were enacting the provisions of Bill C-35 long before we had to make it law. Finally, there was Bill C-27, with respect to dangerous offenders.

Those were all bills that were moved along and would be law now had the government not pulled the plug on its own agenda. It euthanized its own criminal justice program.

In light of the Conservative vote on the capital punishment issue today, it is not surprising that Conservative members believe in terminating things. They have terminated their own hopes and dreams for criminal justice.

However, we want to move Bill C-23 along, which is now Bill C-13. It is an important bill that will deliver a lot of valuable aspects to the criminal justice system.

However, as I move to what is probably bread and butter for me as a New Brunswick politician, the language of the accused, I want to highlight what the bill will do and what it has done in the past. It is important to note the existing context.

At the request of the accused, a judge will order that the accused be granted a preliminary inquiry, a pre-trial procedure, and trial before a judge without jury, or judge with jury, who speak the official language, one or the other, which may be the language of the accused.

If the accused speaks neither English nor French, a judge will order that the accused be granted a preliminary inquiry or trial, without a judge and jury, who speak the official language of Canada in which the accused can best give testimony. The court is also required to provide interpretation services. That is the existing set of laws.

What Bill C-13 does to improve upon that, in clause 18 of the original bill, is to suggest that once the accused appears in court, the judge is required to advise him or her of the right to trial in the official language of his or her choice, but this requirement, as it exists now, is only if the accused is not represented by counsel.

What Bill C-13 does, which Bill C-23 did and which we all agree on, is take away the issue of representation and says that the judge must advise the accused, whether represented or not, it was a false barrier, to his or her right to have a trial in the language of his or her own choice. That was a good change and it leads me into some of my further debate points when I say that the judge was required to advise the accused of his or her languages rights.

I know the member for Beauséjour is a member of the bar. He is experienced in certain criminal proceedings and would know, coming from a francophone milieu, that it is critically important that the gatekeeper for language rights in that context, the provincial court judge in most instances, has that positive duty to inform a judge of his or her right to a trial in the language of his or her choice. It is important to know that the judge is already doing that.

With respect to preliminary inquiries and the trial in both official languages, clauses 18 and 21 changed it so that they became more accessible. Trials in the proper language of the accused, either French or English, would be improved by this bill.

I might add, as an aside, that the translation of documents would be ameliorated certainly by these amendments and we are all in favour of that.

I guess where the rubber hits the road is what to do with the amendments presented by the Senate. My friend, the parliamentary secretary, discussed at length some of the amendments, and I want to counter on the two on which we might have a more elaborate discussion.

We know that this bill is aimed at modernizing our criminal justice system and making it more effective. That goes without saying. My party had indicated that it would support the passage of this bill when it was first introduced before prorogation. It was the bill that I mentioned earlier, Bill C-23.

In the context of this modernization, it is important that the rights of all Canadians be respected with regard to the use of official languages in court proceedings.

Canadians, particularly those in minority language situations, know they have certain rights under the Criminal Code, but it is the federal government's responsibility, and I suggest our responsibility as lawmakers, to ensure the application of those rights is clear and that the judicial process is not delayed.

The way the government presented its view of language rights in Bill C-13, a justice of the peace or court judge would only be charged with finding some way to ensure that accused persons are informed of their language rights. That is really not enough.

One of the amendments that we proposed should be supported. We are in argument with the government on this, at least according to the parliamentary secretary's speech. It is important to say from the outset that the judge already has a duty to advise the accused of his or her rights. The language says that the judge must ensure that the accused knows of this option.

I have witnessed many first appearances and I am very confident in the ability of our judges to advise accused persons of their rights. It is commonly done throughout the province of New Brunswick and in any federally appointed court system where official languages are important.

The amendment proposed by the Senate would ensure that the federal government takes on its responsibilities through its agents to inform any accused persons of their right to proceed in the official language they understand. The Senate amendment simply takes out any potential middleman in the administration of justice. The judge would inform the accused of his or her rights.

I do not think that it is an undue burden for a judge. If there is clear communication during court proceedings, we are simply providing for clear access to justice for all those involved. It falls in line with our democratic society's pledge to have an expedient judicial process and it takes out the aspect of appeal.

I think the government wants efficacious legislation but I cannot be sure sometimes because some of the legislation it presents is so poorly written and so hastily delivered, only for the purpose of a television spot on the news, it is not always clear. In this case, however, if the government would only support this Senate amendment, it could have efficacious and fair language policy through the Criminal Code.

Sadly, the other Senate amendment respecting the reporting on official language requests is not one that the opposition can support. We cannot agree with it because it would require the Minister of Justice to report on the language of proceeding or testimony in criminal matters across this country.

There can be no way that all attorneys general in all provinces and in all territories would have the means to uniformly report on this. As the parliamentary secretary rightly commented, it is not the minister's mandate. In saying this, I do not mean that the Minister of Justice is not competent. I mean that he is not competent in the law to do such reporting. For that reason, we support the government in its opposition to that Senate amendment.

I understand the Senate's concern with ensuring that there is accountability in respecting language rights but we can surely do a more effective job in ensuring this by using the other resources that are in the community.

I know well-known jurists and hard-working jurists in my own province.

They are Sacha D. Morisset and Christian Michaud, who are both members of the Association des juristes d'expression française du Nouveau-Brunswick. They often highlight the statistics with regard to French language trials in our province. If it can be done in New Brunswick, I am sure it can be done in Canada.

Again, we do not support that Senate amendment.

In short, we are very happy to get moving with this important legislation. We are happy the Senate took the time to improve the bill by suggesting that judges, who are the gatekeepers in our system, have the duty to inform an accused of his or her rights respecting language in this country.

It is bedrock in this community and this country that we offer services in both languages with respect, at least, to the Criminal Code of Canada and the criminal justice system.

On this one amendment from the Senate, I urge members of the government to agree with the Senate and with the Liberal Party and its justice team that it will make the situation with respect to the delivery of language rights in this instance a much better thing.

I am very proud to suggest that we support the bill and one of the amendments suggested by the Senate, which is one of the two that are excluded from the government's list in the final motion.

I want to move the following amendment. I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting the words “agrees with Amendments No. 2, 4, 5 and 6” and substituting therefore the words “agrees with Amendments No. 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6” and by deleting the paragraph commencing with the words “disagrees with Amendment No. 1”.

Immigration and Refugee Protection Act

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-3, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (certificate and special advocate) and to make a consequential amendment to another Act. As we know, this is a bill that would reintroduce security certificate legislation with the provision for special advocates to address the civil liberties issues raised by the Supreme Court.

I am opposed to this bill because I believe it would compromise some of the fundamental principles of our justice system by circumventing due process which is a fundamental right in any democracy.

The Conservatives, supported by the Liberals, are proposing a law that attacks section 9 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that states, “Everyone has the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned”. This section specifies not just Canadians but everyone in Canada and yet this law would deny that right to permanent residents and foreign nationals.

It seems somewhat ironic that we say that we are fighting for democracy in Afghanistan and that we want to help them build a justice system that treats all people fairly at the time when there is slippage of those very principles in our own country.

I believe there are many ways to erode democracy. Corruption in government, for example, erodes democracy, free trade agreements that favour commercial rights of corporations over the rights of their citizens, of which the Conservative government is an ardent proponent of, or laws that disenfranchise groups of voters, as did Bill C-6, for example, introduced by the Conservatives, or indeed, as my colleague has just mentioned, the behaviour in the House which undermines true democratic debate.

Bill C-3 is just another law in that series that undermines the fundamental principles that many have fought for and that are being traded away in a very bad law.

There are two major problems with security certificates. First, as one of my colleagues has mentioned, they do not punish people who are plotting or have committed serious crimes, like terrorist acts or espionage. Security certificates allow for the detention and deportation of those suspected of terrorist activities but do not ensure suspected terrorists are charged, prosecuted or jailed for their crimes.

Because there are very serious consequences facing those named in security certificates, like deportation orders, possible removal and even torture, strong safeguards are required and this legislation does not go far enough in protecting civil liberties.

Canada must take strong measures to protect itself and its citizens against terrorists and spies. These are not nice people and we must take strong measures. However, we must find a better balance between protection against terrorist activities and protection of civil liberties than that offered in this flawed bill. The NDP believes that the Criminal Code is the right tool for the protection of our national security, not the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

I listened very carefully to some of the Conservative and Liberal members who have argued today in favour of this law. The member for Vancouver South said that security certificates offered the only effective mechanism, as the evidence may be out of country and we could not get a conviction in a court of law.

I think there is something fundamentally wrong with sending someone away under the cloud of accusation of terrorism without any proof. There is something equally wrong in sending them away so they can continue their criminal activities elsewhere. Why would we allow someone we suspect of terrorist acts to leave the country? How does that improve our global security?

The second flaw in this bill includes secret hearings, detention without charge or conviction, detention without knowing the evidence against someone, indefinite detention and lack of an appeal process. This again undermines the core values of our justice system.

The right of full answer in defence, the right to know the allegations against someone and the opportunity to respond to those allegations is a well recognized aspect of fundamental justice and that right is abrogated under the security certificate process. The detainee may never know the reasons why he or she is being deported. As with the Maher Arar case, we have seen the abuses that can occur.

It is understandable that security may be needed in some cases. I am not a lawyer but I understand that there are very clear provisions within our Criminal Code and the court system for matters of national security for hearing evidence when there is a need to withhold information in the interest of national security. One has to ask why we are rushing to abrogate basic democratic rights.

I believe it was the member for Vancouver South who admitted that this law was flawed but, like most of his Liberal colleagues, he has indicated that he will vote in favour of a bad law. It was an incomprehensible statement Liberal opposition members made in our Parliament that they would support a bad law because we are running out of time, the time having been set by the Supreme Court. I do not know how often I have heard this. It seems very convenient that the government has waited nine months or until the very last minute to reintroduce Bill C-3.

Another argument that has been used by those supporting the bill is that they have improved the security certificate process by introducing special advocates. Special advocates have been used in New Zealand and the United Kingdom and the process in both of those places is seriously flawed and under heavy criticism by many credible people. The United Kingdom keeps being cited by those who support modifying rather than abolishing the security certificate system despite court cases that have ruled against them there.

Given that the United Kingdom Lords of Appeal have ruled against provisions of the process and that Ian Macdonald, QC, a special advocate with over seven years experience, quit over the failure of the government to address the problems with the system, it does not seem to be the ideal solution for Canada to adopt.

The NDP strongly believes that a system that denies the right of answer in defence cannot be corrected by mere procedural tweaking. Even if all civil liberties were protected, security certificates within the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act would still not be the appropriate mechanism for dealing with threats to national security which should be pursued under existing articles of the Criminal Code.

We strongly oppose security certificates because the process is fundamentally flawed and this measure would further diminish democratic rights in Canada.

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

I can't figure it out. That's why I'd like to have this committee do an examination. Why the inconsistency? If we were to get all the parties to agree to my motion and bring the books forward, we'd have a pretty good discussion, and I think we'd have a very good opportunity to bring the Chief Electoral Officer in here and say, “It doesn't make any sense to us; explain the inconsistencies.”

Here are some examples, one a Conservative and one an NDP; one a Conservative and one a Liberal; one a Conservative and one a Bloc candidate. They've all done the same thing. The amounts vary, but the process is exactly the same. So please tell me, Monsieur Mayrand, why have you only ruled that the Conservative candidates were in violation of the act? Can you explain that to me? I would love to have that discussion.

I think, frankly, we should be having that discussion. I think it should be incumbent upon this committee to enter and engage in that discussion. But the only reason we're not is because the members opposite choose not to. Why not? Again, it's simple; it wouldn't be to their political benefit to have such a discussion, because then they would be engaged in a process that would ultimately exonerate the Conservative Party. They would be in a process that demonstrated quite clearly that they follow the same practices as the Conservative Party. That wouldn't give them any political smack. That wouldn't give them the opportunity to go onto the election hustings and point a finger at the Conservatives, and that's what this is all about. That's simply what this is all about.

We have a situation in which the opposition members are simply trying to muddy the waters, to throw mud against the wall—in this case, the Conservative wall—and hope that it sticks. But it won't. I respectfully submit to all members of this committee that it won't. We saw the same futile attempts at trying to muddy the waters in the Schreiber-Mulroney affair. That didn't work. They backed off. We see similar attempts here.

But as much as anything, at least from the Liberals' perspective, it's an attempt to deflect attention from their own political shortcomings. Let me explain what I mean: they are attempting to use this to smear the Conservative brand.

Why would they want to deflect attention? What could be going on within the Liberal Party that they would want to deflect attention? Well, let's just examine, for a moment, their position or non-position on the continuation of the Afghanistan mission.

The Liberals and Mr. Dion have consistently said that their position was clear, that we need an end to the combat mission by 2009, and that it's the Conservatives who haven't been clear on the matter. Well, I'm going to laugh, because the only people in Canada who would suggest that we haven't been clear in our position are the Liberals.

The Manley report is one that we broadly accepted. The Prime Minister had a news conference to discuss it. He has attempted, since that time, to convince other world leaders to commit additional troops and helicopters. So our position has been clear.

The Liberals, of course, are caught in a divisive moment. Their caucus is divided on this, and they don't want to discuss it. So how do we get away from discussing the issue? Well, why don't we go to committee, make a trumped-up charge, and try to deflect attention? That's what's happening here.

At the end of the day, trumped-up charges are not going to carry the day, politically. At the end of the day, Canadians will not be fooled by this. Canadians will be looking at what's relevant to them, come the next election.

Will this supposed in-and-out scheme be an issue? I think not. But it doesn't stop the opposition members in this committee from attempting to make it an issue. I'm quite sure that when they have caucus meetings or strategy meetings, if in fact they have such things, they're thinking about things they can do either during question period or in committee to try to embarrass or take down the Conservatives. This has been one of them.

It is no secret that we had all discussed this and agreed informally that legislation would be one of our priorities as a committee. No matter what else, legislation, or proposed legislation, would be given priority. Yet when the subcommittee met and came back with their report, it said that the debate on the motion of Karen Redman would take priority over the other work of the committee. Now why would they want to do that?

We all agreed, every party agreed, that legislation would take priority, as it should. Now we have Bill C-6, which I know is very important to the Bloc Québécois. It deals with veiled voting. Well, according to the subcommittee, of which the Bloc were active members—the Conservatives were not, by the way, so were without a voice on that committee—the Bloc agreed to this motion taking priority over Bill C-6, veiled voting.

Now, I know the importance of that bill in the province of Quebec. I know the importance of that motion to the members of the Bloc Québécois at this committee. They've stated that many times. Yet once again partisan interests override anything else when it comes to the members opposite. Even members of the Bloc, who so passionately argued in the debate on Bill C-6, are now saying, “To heck with that, put that aside, because we might be able to create a scandal on this election advertising thing.”

Well, what does that say, Chair, about the motivation behind the Bloc Québécois in this committee, who are willing to subjugate an important discussion on the examination of Bill C-6, which they have identified as a priority of theirs, because of this motion of Ms. Redman's? All that says to me is that the Bloc as well as the Liberals and the NDP are putting partisan interests before the interests of Canadians. They are putting the interests of their own party before the interests of Canadians, putting their own political interests ahead of the interests of Canadians.

Mr. Chair, I don't agree with that. I know that members of my party don't agree with that. But in an attempt to solve this impasse, I've put forward a motion and said, “Look, you want to examine our books? You think something's there? Let's get at it. Let's start doing it. The only thing is that we have to take a look at yours as well.”

If you recall, I consistently have said that we do not believe any of the opposition parties have done anything wrong. They should have nothing to fear. We're even admitting that we believe they have nothing and did nothing wrong.

I don't see why they shouldn't just say this: Great, let's accept the motion, because that way, at least, starting immediately, we can start looking at the inside of the Conservative Party books. We can take a look and see what they did during the election. If they did anything wrong, we'll be able to find it. Since we did nothing wrong and we have nothing to hide, we can open up our books. You can have a full examination of our books. Of course, that will even further buttress our contention that the Conservatives were the only party that did anything wrong. By proving our innocence and proving the complicity of the Conservative Party with the so-called advertising scandal, we can make our case.

But that wasn't the reaction of the opposition parties. That wasn't the reaction of the members opposite.

Canada Elections Act

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I normally preface all my speeches by saying that I am very proud to rise in the House and speak to a bill; however, I am not very proud to rise and speak to this bill, because we are speaking about the increasingly dismal trade of politics as it is practised in Ottawa.

When someone does a job badly, and it is found out that the person has done it badly, it is incumbent upon the person to fix it. I have done many different jobs over the years and I have been proud of all of them.

When I was a dishwasher, if the cook did not like the way I washed the dishes, they came back to me right away and I would do them again, otherwise I was not going to hold that job.

A house builder would not get away with putting up a wall wrong. The foreman would come in and determine whether the wall was built right or wrong. If it was built wrong, it would be torn down and rebuilt.

As a musician, boy oh boy, musicians know what would happen if they did not satisfy the crowd on a Saturday night. They would hear about it right then and there and if they were going to keep those gigs, they had to improve.

What is our job here in Ottawa? Our job is to bring forth legislation. We have to do due diligence on legislation. It is incumbent upon all of us at a certain point to check our partisan hats. We need to examine proposed legislation and bring perspectives from our regions. Each of us represents different areas of the country. There are many different political and cultural points of view. We have to look at legislation and determine its efficacy, because at the end of the day, it will become the law of the land. That is our foremost job in the House, and it has to be undertaken with the utmost seriousness.

When we deliver a law that has failed badly, it is incumbent upon all of us in the House to see what went wrong, to step back and see how the mistake happened in order that we can rectify it and take pride in our work.

Unfortunately, as I said, this is becoming an increasingly dismal trade because it seems that when a mistake is made, we do not look at what went wrong. We turn it over to our spin-meisters and our wedge issue people to try to re-write history and what happened. The path to understand how the mistake was made becomes deliberately obscured. When it becomes deliberately obscured, we are doing a disservice, because our fundamental job is to represent the best interests of this country in terms of bringing forward legislation that is applicable, that is just, and that in the field will actually help our citizens.

With respect to Bill C-18, I set out with some high hopes that we would rectify the problems of a badly flawed bill, BillC-31. My colleagues from the Bloc say that Bill C-31 was brought in to escape issues of widespread fraud. The committee examined issues of fraud because fraud is a very serious threat to the health of democracy. Fraud has to be sought out wherever it exists. It cannot be sought out with vague old wives' tales or writing on the bathroom wall. It has to be proven. It is incumbent upon the Chief Electoral Officer to hunt down any cases of fraud.

The committee looked at the issue of fraud and found one case which occurred in 2006. There were no cases in 2004. There were three cases in 2000. That is not to make light of electoral fraud. We trusted the Chief Electoral Officer to investigate and study any allegations out there. We came back with Bill C-31.

At the time, New Democrats were concerned that people would be disenfranchised. At the end of the day, regardless of what my colleagues in the Bloc say, the right to vote is an inalienable right in Canada. It is enshrined in the charter as one of our fundamental rights. We have to ensure that when people have the right to vote, they are not blocked from voting.

When Bill C-31 came out, lo and behold, we found there were not one but two major problems with it. A million rural residents were not going to be able to vote, thanks to a lack of due diligence in the committee's work. Then there was the issue of the wearing of veils when voting. Now we have Bill C-6. We have a bill that became law and within a few months we already have to have two other band-aid laws to repair the fundamental flaws in the first bill. When we look at Bill C-18, we have to ask ourselves whether it will fix the problem and if it will do it right. That is our obligation at the end of the day.

As referred to many times, the discussion on Bill C-18, is to fix a problem for rural residents. When anyone raises the issue of homeless people, there seems to be a fundamental balancing act. Do we worry about a few thousand homeless people in Vancouver or do we worry about a million residents in rural Canada?

However, nowhere in Bill C-18 does it speak to the issue of rural residents. It speaks to an act to amend the Canada Elections Act, the verification of residents. The verification of residents is the key element that leads to the potential disenfranchisement, as the electoral officer said in one case, of a million rural Canadians, including urban Canadians, first nations Canadians and then homeless people.

I will not to focus too much on Bill C-31, but we need to know where we came from in order to know why we still have a fundamental problem. I know members of the House who were on the committee voted for it, but after questioned how this happened, that they must have missed a translation at third reading.

They did not miss it. They were not interested. We spoke about it. We brought forward witnesses who said that there would be problems with the ability of people to meet the onerous requirements of Bill C-31.

I spoke to Bill C-31. I am not patting myself on the back, but perhaps I was just too lazy to get the records of what everyone else said. However, I know what I said, so I will bring it up, and it is fairly straightforward.

When we discussed Bill C-31, I spoke of the problems we had in the rural parts of my riding and in other communities with mailboxes and the difficulties people would have in voting. That was on the record for many people. I spoke of the issues of photo IDs and the fact that on the James Bay coast, an area I represent, up to 30% of the communities did not even have health cards.

We help them fill out the health cards. The Ontario government does not even bother to do photographs for first nations people. It sends them little trillium stickers because it is cheaper than getting photo IDs. Therefore, we had raised the issue of the problems of identification in these isolated areas.

I had said at that time that I would invite anybody to go into Fort Albany and ask people their addresses. People do not have street addresses and that is how they get by. We find in many of our communities, they simply do not even have the most basic registration that is being required.

We were bringing forward the perspective of our regions and our constituents to bring a sense of reality to the debate. At the time, I remember it was ignored and overlooked. In fact, there was a fair amount of snickering. The old NDP was standing in the way of progress again.

I will refer to evidence at committee at the time from the Nishnawbe-Aski Nation, which was ignored. Witnesses said that the voting changes to Bill C-31 were:

—based on the assumption that the majority of Canadian electors live in urban centres. Until government services are made available in an equitable manner to our people living in remote communities and the amendments to the act reflect the realities of the lives of our people...I suggest that the committee, if possible, visit some of our communities to better understand the challenges we face in our role as Canadian citizens.

They were ignored.

Suddenly now we have a situation where there is an embarrassment that the bill has failed. Therefore, we were all called together to try to fix it. The issue of fixing it is paramount, but again we have to do due diligence. How do we do due diligence? We have to bring forward witnesses. This is not stalling. This is ensuring that we do not fall into the same mistakes that were made.

The process we went through with the bill was a very dismal, petty process. The Liberal whip tried to push the vote through without any witnesses. How can we go through with no witnesses when 80% of the people in Nunavut have been told they are not enfranchised to vote? Would we not think it would be incumbent upon us in the House, after having made such a colossal error, to at least have a witness who can speak to the bill and say whether or not it addresses the problem? However, no, it was a desire to get this thing done and out of the road by Christmas.

I brought forward four witnesses to speak to the bill because I felt the issue was whether the vouching system would work with what we had to address. There is no problem with the rest of the amendments to Bill C-18. We support the need to get this thing fixed, but the issue is whether vouching, in the way it is laid out, will be a practical, realistic solution to the problem.

We had four credible witnesses. There was a fifth witness, and I do not know where he had come from, but he was allowed to speak as well. They were given two minutes each to give their perspective on the bill. They were interrupted many times. They were cut off at the end. At the end of the day the chair basically told them they did not know what they were talking about.

I found that quite a shocking and sad testimony. Whether we agree with witnesses in committee or not, they come forward so they can given us a perspective and we can test their points of view. We are legislators, so when a witnesses come, whether they represent what we think is the most far out solution, our role is to test them, to ask them the fundamental questions to see if what they have brought forward to us stands the test of reason. That is how we make legislation.

Ian Boyko, from the Canadian Federation of Students, came forward. In his testimony, he said that to have only two minutes to address the problems with the bill and the vouching for ten of thousands of students who would be disenfranchised, he could not even begin to do it. He said that he would take questions, but nobody asked him a one.

I have never seen anything like this. I have never seen such a lack of interest. The head of the Canadian Federal of Students came to a committee and stated that tens of thousands of university students would be ineligible to vote because Bill C-18 would not address the issues they faced and nobody asked questions.

It is a funny situation when we sit in our committee and talk about encouraging young people to vote and how we can find ways to do that. Yet when they came to speak to us, nobody even had a question for them. They wanted it through.

Another astounding statement was from Jim Quail from the British Columbia Public Interest Advocacy Centre. He said that even if the changes went in, the changes that will address some of the issues we face, 700,000 urban residents would still not possibly meet the test. This is based on what the electoral officer had provided previously, and this does not include the other million people. That is based on 5% who would not meet those requirements because they have moved or whatever.

We heard in our committee on a previous bill that 12% to 15% of the voters in Australia now voted by declaration because of the continual movement in urban areas of people moving in and out or people who do not know anyone. Anyone who has an urban riding is well used to this. Even in the urban part of some of my communities, when I go into a neighbourhood six months after an election, it is almost like a completely different group of people in there. Sometimes I wonder if I am walking down the wrong street. However, a major mobility is happening across the western world.

Australia has identified that 15% of the people now vote by declaration. In declaration voting they swear and oath. There is no way to get them on the voters list. We do not have the old style days when we went out and updated the voting list so we ensured people were on there.

Even when we have the voting list, it is not up to date. Some people have tried to do a mail-out and have received calls from people, cranky as all heck, because the person no longer lives at that address or they have been divorced for years so why would a Christmas card be sent that address. We know the problems with the electoral list.

I saw that recently in Ontario. My wife and I went to vote and, lo and behold, she was not on the electoral list, and the house is in her name. I do not know how that happened, but people who trusts the computers that generate the Elections Canada lists put themselves in much higher hands than I would.

What we see is a problem of people who go to vote and are suddenly not on the list, or people who have moved to places where they do not know people. At the end of the day, they have a right to vote.

Jim Quail said that there would be 700,000 based on what the Elections Canada officer said. He could have been blowing smoke with these claims, but our job as legislators is to test him, question him and engage him. If we think these numbers are wrong, we have to test them. That is the only way we can bring forward legislation. Nobody was interested in what he had to say because members wanted the vote to be over.

This is the same pattern that happened with the previous bill. We end up in a situation where we have not done the due diligence, where we have not answered the fundamental question of whether this will work. That is what the legislation has to be able to prove. It has to prove it will work and ensure that the people, who have a right to vote, are able to vote. If we have not answered those questions satisfactorily, then we have failed in our jobs.

We certainly failed the job on Bill C-31. The problem with Bill C-18 is this. Having not answered the questions of why students will be disenfranchised, or will 700,000 urban residents be affected and how many of the 150,000 homeless people may not be able to vote, we have a serious problem.

The solution being offered is a one voucher system. At face value, it seems a reasonable solution to have someone vouch for another person. I do not have a problem with the concept, but when we make legislation, we have to establish laws that are applicable in the field.

They always say that the camel was a horse designed by a committee. We have had three and four hump camels coming out of our committees because there is such a distinct lack of reality between what we talk about in committee, which is the reality of politics, and what we see in the field. We are all in this business of politics, so we know what the reality is when we go to the voting booths and how the individual poll clerks identify what is acceptable and what is not.

I know a man in Ontario who has lived in the same rural route his whole life. When he went to vote, he was told he was not on the list. He produced his passport and was told a passport was not an acceptable piece of identification. It would get him into Saudi Arabia, but it would not allow him to vote in Ontario. Is this part of the Ontario elections act or is this how they interpret the act? We see the problems in each of these areas.

At the end of the day, the question is whether it works as a piece of legislation. Say I am a student who leaves Timmins—James Bay to go school at the University of Ottawa. After arriving there, I want to vote because the election is on September 15. When I go to vote, I am told I have to have a person vouch for me. What if my neighbour is not there that day or has already voted, then I have to wait on him or I cannot vote.

The example in a rural area is what if I know two people who moved in, but I am only allowed to vouch for one of them? Vouching, at the end of the day, is not practical so we have to go back to the issue of a declaration. Otherwise, people will continue to be disenfranchised. That is why I believe we have failed to do our job with this bill.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, 2007 has been a great year for Canada and a great year for the House of Commons.

Next week is the last week of the fall sitting and the last week before the new year. The sitting and the year have been extremely successful for the federal government, as we have introduced legislation in all of our priority areas and have delivered results for Canadians.

However, since we have only a few sitting days remaining this year to address important tax cuts, security issues and other priority bills still pending, Canadians are expecting us to work very hard in the coming days to produce results for them.

We want to see our priority bills passed in this House and sent to the Senate so that they may become law before Christmas. As a result, next week will be 2007, a year of results week.

We plan to build on our past achievements by debating and passing the budget implementation bill, which would lower taxes for all Canadians by reducing the GST to 5%, as well as by bringing in tax cuts for individuals and corporations.

We will debate Bill S-2, An Act to amend the Canada-United States Tax Convention Act, 1984, which must be passed by Parliament before January 1 to ensure that it is implemented and we can benefit from that.

We will also debate our railway transportation bill, Bill C-8, and our bill on the settlement of international investment disputes, Bill C-9. Both bills will help create jobs and provide economic certainty for Canadians.

Our government will continue to show Canadians that we are serious about tackling crime and strengthening the security of Canadians. Next week, we expect that our security certificates bill, Bill C-3, will be reported back from committee. The bill will then be debated at report stage and third reading. We hope the hon. members of the House understand the importance of passing this legislation so that it may be considered and passed by the Senate before the deadline imposed by the Supreme Court.

We will debate any amendments made to our Bill C-13 on criminal procedure, currently being examined by the Senate.

Speaking of the Senate, the government hopes that the tackling violent crime act will pass the Senate so Canadians can feel safer over the Christmas holidays knowing that the bill has been enacted into law.

Canadians also expect their institutions to be more accountable and democratic. We have built a record of results on this file as well, with the passage of the Federal Accountability Act and Bill C-31 to improve the integrity of the voting process. Next week we will continue with our plans in this area by debating Bill C-29, which closes a loophole in our campaign financing laws that Liberal leadership candidates used to bypass campaign contribution limits last year.

We would also like Bill C-6, on the visual identification of voters, and Bill C-18, on the verification of residence, to be sent back by committee. It is important for these bills to become law, so that they can be implemented in time for the next byelections.

Tomorrow I will also seek consent to send Bill C-30, the specific land claims bill, to committee. This bill to create certainty and allow land claims to be resolved more quickly is a welcome addition and the country will be better off the sooner its process is put in place.

This year, 2007, has been an excellent year for Canada. Our economy is booming, the country is united and there is integrity in government.

We have achieved a lot this year. Our government has delivered real results for Canadians in 2007 and will continue to do so next week and in the new year.

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

Before everybody scoots off here, this would require unanimous consent. I'm not sure it will get it, but it's merely to take up a kind offer that Madam Redman made when she said she wanted to deal with Bill C-18, on rural voting, expeditiously. If there's unanimous consent from this committee to pass that bill at all three stages, we could report it back to the House. I'm not talking about Bill C-6, on veiled voting. I know there's going to be lots of debate on that. I'm just talking about the rural voting, Bill C-18.

But we would need unanimous consent to be able to do that.

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

It is, and in response to Marcel and Charlie, I don't know about my colleagues, but I'm not trying to filibuster this, because I want to get to Bill C-6 and Bill C-18.

For the benefit of all members--and I know Pierre and Karen would know this--my minister wanted to make sure I informed everybody that Bill C-6 and Bill C-18 are priorities for our government. We want to get them passed before we rise for the break, because there could be byelections coming up. I certainly don't want to unduly delay this thing here--

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Mr. Reid, I apologize for interrupting, but I have to respect members' agendas.

Colleagues, the subcommittee on code of ethics will be meeting on Thursday, 9:30 a.m. to 11 a.m., regarding the disclosure forms. That's just a reminder. That is just before the main committee's meeting at 11 o'clock.

As the committee agreed last week, I will need a list of potential witnesses for Bill C-6 and Bill C-18. If it's at all possible to have any lists in by Thursday at 9 a.m., that would be very helpful for our clerks.

The committee agreed last Thursday to proceed to clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-16 on Thursday, December 6, which is our next meeting. I'm just being informed that we have all party amendments, so that's fantastic. We will therefore proceed to clause-by-clause of Bill C-16 on Thursday, failing any other motions to go in a different direction.

Ms. Redman, please.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I'm going to go back to what seems to be my favourite subject, and that's the power of adaptation. I'm going to ask you a question similar to what I did with Bill C-6, because I think this is far more serious, or potentially could be far more serious, in terms of disenfranchising up to a million voters. Hopefully we have widespread support for this bill around this committee and within our respective parties.

My question would be, if this bill is before Parliament but not passed, not given royal assent, and a byelection or general election occurs--and we're potentially talking millions of people if it is a general election--what would you be prepared to do then, Monsieur Mayrand? Would you be prepared to use your power of adaptation to enact the provisions contained in the bill, even though it was not passed into law, to ensure that rural voters, particularly, wouldn't be disenfranchised?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Colleagues, I appreciate the opportunity to ask a couple of my own questions to clarify.

Colleagues, if you could put your Bill C-6 folders aside, we'll move right to Bill C-18, which is verification of residence. We already have an introduction of our experts at the end of the table.

Perhaps I could offer Monsieur Mayrand a moment of introduction to this bill. We will then move to our rounds of questioning, colleagues, beginning with seven minutes.

Monsieur Mayrand, please.

[Marc Mayrand]

According to the law as it stands, each voter wishing to vote must establish that he or she is entitled to vote. That involves two elements: you must 18 years of age and be a Canadian citizen. If the returning officer has some doubt with regard to either one of these two conditions, he or she may ask the person wishing to vote to swear an oath. In September, we set up a procedure to be followed to establish if a person whose face is covered, for whatever reason, should be allowed to vote. Basically, as I stated, when you see a person whose face is covered or hidden, that should cause you to wonder. The person must be invited to show their face or to swear an oath. This is the procedure that was followed for the by-elections in September. Obviously, Bill C-6 would change this process and establish clearly that everyone would have to show his or her face.

[Marc Mayrand]

Yes, we are talking about current law and not Bill C-6. I simply wish to underscore that fact.

[Marc Mayrand]

As I indicated before, the power to adapt is an extraordinary authority given to the Chief Electoral Officer. In my mind, it should be used with extreme caution and for very exceptional circumstances. This power of adaptation is designed, in my mind, to facilitate the right to vote and not to restrict people from voting. I think it's up to Parliament to establish the conditions for the exercise of the right to vote.

If Bill C-6 is not adopted prior to a possible general election, or even byelection—I believe one has to be called by the end of this month—I will take the same position as I took in September, institute the same procedures requiring all electors showing up at the polling stations to display their face before being issued a ballot. Those who refuse will be asked to take an oath. If they refuse to take an oath, they will not be allowed to vote.

In addition, I will do as I did in September, monitor the situation very closely—in fact, by the minute, almost—and if there are issues of disturbance of the vote or behaviours that would bring disrepute to the voting process, I will take the necessary measures to ensure that the vote takes place in an orderly manner.

At this point, I cannot commit to adapting the act.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Because we dealt with this on Bill C-31, my recollection was that there were three or potentially four. I say that, Chair, just because the nature of this bill and the bill we'll be dealing with in the second hour hinges on Bill C-31 and I think it's important to underline that.

It is our party's contention that this bill and Bill C-18 are creatures of Bill C-31, and if we didn't have a flawed Bill C-31, we wouldn't have Bill C-6 or Bill C-18. That's the reason for my inquiry and for my statement.

So what we have here, and I've said this before, is the solution looking for a problem and we've certainly found them. This bill seems to be analogous to a hammer killing a fly. I look at the amount of money we've spent, the amount of time we've spent to deal with what I am understanding is a problem that hasn't existed, and I hope we'll hear from witnesses from the community.

Specifically, Chair, and to our panel, I haven't encountered one person who has been unwilling to unveil when she has come to exercise her franchise. Are we aware or are you aware anecdotally of...?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Order, please. Order.

Let's try to stay focused on Bill C-6.

Madame Picard, please. Seven minutes.

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

Mr. Mayrand, it has already been said, during meetings that did not necessarily relate to Bill C-6 but rather to elections administration, that staff recruitment was a relatively serious problem. I, for my part, have not been faced with this problem because I live in an urban environment. However, several of my colleagues tell me that, in rural areas, it can be quite difficult to recruit workers for elections, and, in the case at hand, I should rather be talking about female workers.

How can you say that this will not cause a problem, whereas it appears you have difficulty recruiting women to work in polling stations, and under Bill C-6, you will have to hire women to visually identify women whose face is hidden but who will agree to remove their veil before another woman?

[Marc Mayrand]

With regard to the Charter and legal advice in this regard, I did not require an opinion. I believe it is up to the government to obtain this type of opinion and to draft bills accordingly. My responsibility consists in enforcing this act, as passed by Parliament.

The text of Bill C-6 that I have thus far seen provides us with sufficient flexibility to administer the law in a way that is consistent and respectful of the rights and obligations of each and everyone. With regard to its enforcement, I foresee no administrative difficulties at the moment.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome, Mr. Mayrand, Ms. Davidson, Mr. Perrault and Mr. Molnar. It is most kind of you to have come here to meet with us this morning to discuss Bill C-6.

Mr. Mayrand, you have been subjected to an avalanche of criticism by the government because of the position you took with regard to the interpretation of the act. Following this pronouncement, the government wished to save face. Your position with regard to the presumably illegal expenses of the Conservative government during the last election has not helped get your name added to the list of people that the government has a good opinion of.

What is your view of the changes made to Bill C-6 and how do they compare with what existed previously? I would also like to know if you have obtained from your legal advisors opinions or interpretations relating to the Charter of Rights? Under Bill C-6, you would be required to verify people's identity visually. It is you who, through your representatives and contract staff, among others, would be required to carry out this verification.

Do you believe you will be able to fulfil this obligation comfortably or will it be yet another source of tension between Elections Canada and the Conservative government, as was the case when you spoke out about its potentially fraudulent expenses?

[Marc Mayrand, Chief Electoral Officer, Office of the Chief Electoral Officer]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have with me Mrs. Diane Davidson, deputy chief electoral officer and chief legal counsel, also responsible for regulatory affairs; Mr. Stéphane Perrault, who's our senior general counsel; and Mr. Rennie Molnar, who is the associate deputy chief electoral officer, responsible for electoral events.

I'm here this morning to discuss Bill C-6, which concerns the visual identification of voters. Bill C-6 requires that electors have their faces uncovered when providing identification at an ordinary or advance polling station. This rule will also apply to electors who go to the office of a returning officer to obtain their special ballots.

I do not anticipate any difficulty in implementing the bill, as drafted, upon its royal assent. It provides the authority and flexibility necessary to ensure the good administration of the Canada Elections Act.

The bill raises only one technical issue: Clause 4 restricts the delegation of powers and duties by deputy returning officers and poll clerks to additional staff. This excludes the election officers already present at the polling site.

It would seam appropriate to authorize deputy returning officers and poll clerks to delegate their powers and duties to any election officer present at the polling site. This would allow a more efficient use of resources.

Moreover, it would be preferable to permit such delegation not only at polling stations, as currently provided for in the bill, but also at advance polling stations.

I have brought with me a technical paper containing the changes I am proposing to the wording of Clause 4 of the bill.

My colleagues and I would be pleased to answer your questions concerning the bill.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Let's bring our meeting to order, please.

Pursuant to the order of reference of Thursday, November 15, 2007, the committee is examining Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (visual identification of voters).

We will also be studying Bill C-18, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (verification of residence) later in the meeting, pursuant to the committee's order of reference of Friday, November 16, 2007.

Colleagues, today we have Marc Mayrand, the Chief Electoral Officer, and his team with us again.

We certainly appreciate and welcome your presence before the committee.

Members will appreciate that we're actually studying three pieces of legislation and one motion all at the same time. I appreciate members' ability to do that and, certainly, the ability of the Chief Electoral Officer and his team to brief us on three pieces of legislation, for the most part at the same time.

What we will do this morning is begin with an opening statement from Monsieur Mayrand. Then we will go to our first round of questioning. The plan would be to study Bill C-6, for which you have a briefing in front of you, for the first 45 minutes, and then in the second 45 minutes go into Bill C-18. I want to maintain a half hour at the end of this meeting to discuss committee business and clarification of some issues that have arisen here today.

With that, I will open the floor to Monsieur Mayrand. Would you introduce your team for the record? Then if you have any opening statement on Bill C-6, the floor is yours. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

At 11 o'clock.

Colleagues, you're so good to me. I appreciate it very much. That will be the decision.

A reminder: witnesses for Bill C-6 and Bill C-18, please. There will be the summary of the reports to members by Monday, with the idea of going to clause-by-clause on Thursday. With respect to amendments, we said one o'clock on Tuesday.

Thank you, members. We did well.

The meeting is adjourned.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I have to agree with members: that's not enough time to read them, assess them, analyze them, and come up with amendments, should there be any.

All right. We probably cannot go to clause-by-clause study on Tuesday. That's going to be far too tight. Can we have amendments in by Tuesday at one o'clock and plan to do clause-by-clause study on Thursday, which relaxes things a little bit?

Colleagues, that seems to be the decision.

Moving on, we need to have witness lists in for Bill C-6 and Bill C-18. We do have some witnesses, and we'll work on that probably for Tuesday, but I also want to remind members that we need to have those witness lists in.

We don't have a lot of time, and I don't want to be rude to Madam Dawson. You have been handed out the revised report of the steering committee. Can everybody pull that out? We're attempting to adopt a report that is asking for extra meetings for the continuation of the debate on the motion by Madam Redman.

I'm not sure we're going to have time to deal with this; I do apologize. I will adjourn the meeting at ten minutes to one. Just so we don't get into confusion, room 139 north is down the hall on the right side. The Ethics Commissioner and her team are waiting there for us right now for our meet-and-greet. This room is not available, so we have to evacuate at that time.

The floor is now open, however, for this. I suppose there's a motion to adopt the report. We're into a debate. I don't think there were any names on our list last time. Does anybody wish to comment on this new report?

I have Mr. Reid and Mr. Lukiwski.

Go ahead, Mr. Reid, please.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you very much for the clarification. That's why I'm reading this out, so that we know what we do have to do.

Monsieur Proulx asked for a copy of any response from the Chief Electoral Officer to the minister's requests. Not much later, Madam Redman brought up the suggestion about bringing the Chief Electoral Officer in to discuss Bill C-6.

Would it be a smart idea to bring the Chief Electoral Officer in to deal specifically with Mr. Proulx's request as well as Madam Redman's request, as well as Bill C-18, if he has comments on it? We could have him here one time and deal with all three.

If no one objects to that, we will send the Chief Electoral Officer, then, a letter and give him notice of that.

We are still waiting for a letter from Monsieur Blanchet regarding Bill C-16. We haven't received it yet, so we will follow up on that.

This week, colleagues—I just want to remind members—tomorrow, on Wednesday, November 28, we have the subcommittee on the code of ethics meeting in room 112-N from 3:30 to 5 p.m. for the election of a chair and continuation of the committee's review of the code of ethics commissioner's report.

At five minutes to seven is an informal meet and greet with the Chief Electoral Officer, Monsieur Mayrand, at Elections Canada. All are invited to attend who can.

On Thursday from 11 to 11:45, we have two academics, Jon Pammett and David Docherty.

Scheduled from 11:45 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. is Chief Electoral Officer Jean Ouellet, from Saskatchewan.

Following that, there is also an informal meet and greet with Mary Dawson, who is the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner.

That brings us to a problem I'm going to ask my clerk to explain to members before we go into consideration of the report; it has to do with the ability to televise future meetings. There was some conversation yesterday at the steering committee about televising and when it would happen and what rooms are available.

We have priority, as this committee takes priority over other committees, and it would be up to the whips to determine whether we take precedence or priority over a televised room.

I'm going to ask Mr. Latimer to explain to committee members the difficulty with televised rooms. Then we'll move right into the report so that members can consider it.

Please, Mr. Latimer.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to underscore an issue that has actually been raised by a couple of colleagues, and that's the fact that this is remediating an unintended consequence of a previous piece of legislation.

While I certainly concur with Minister Van Loan that the request was made through House leaders, I'm wondering if there is an occasion to have the Chief Electoral Officer back to talk about some of the other legislation before us, such as Bill C-6. Maybe the chair could let him know that this is an issue that we would like to address.

I would certainly like to have the assurance of the Chief Electoral Officer that this is indeed remediating what we are trying to do and there are no other unintended foreseeable consequences before we deal with this piece of legislation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you, colleagues.

What I'd like to do right now, if there are no further questions for the minister on Bill C-6 , is suspend the meeting for one minute so that colleagues and the witnesses can remove all their research papers and notes on this bill and prepare themselves for the next item of business, which is Bill C-18. I will suspend the meeting for one minute.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

What I was trying to determine was that since Bill C-6 has been tabled, there has been no uproar against it. No one is raising their arms and saying that's absolutely the wrong approach. The reason I'm asking is because if that is the case, as you mentioned, we seemed to have all-party support at one time. We do work closely with the other parties. I don't want to put you in a difficult position, but I'm wondering if you still sense all-party support. If not, have recommendations been made to win all-party support?

Groups have not approached and said that Bill C-6 is absolutely in the wrong direction. They're in favour of it. Yet we seem to be losing party support. From my perspective, I'm wondering if that's all-party support. Is that from your perspective as well?

[Lucienne Robillard, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

So consequently, Minister, the requirements are different. I understand that proof of identification requirements would be different when voting by mail as opposed to in person.

I'd like to know if your specialists or associates, when preparing Bill C-6, voiced an opinion as to whether or not the bill complied with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Furthermore, was the notion of equality between the sexes considered by your associates?

[Natasha Kim]

Bill C-6.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Colleagues, let's begin our meeting today.

First of all, welcome. Thank you for attending the meeting.

Ladies and gentlemen, today we have, pursuant to the order of reference of Thursday, November 15, 2007, Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (visual identification of voters). We have the honourable minister before us this morning for that, which I hope we can deal with in the first hour.

Colleagues, following the first hour we will also have the minister with us, but we will be dealing with a separate bill, Bill C-18. We can go into that in the second hour.

As well, colleagues, I'm going to ask that we have an additional fifteen minutes—and we probably don't need that long, but an extra fifteen minutes—to deal with committee business at the end. We will do our best to speed it along, but we do have some committee business.

Without further ado, I would like to welcome the honourable minister, Mr. Peter Van Loan, leader of the government in the House of Commons and the Minister for Democratic Reform.

Minister, I will ask you to introduce your team, and then we will allow you some time for an opening statement.

Colleagues, we'll follow the usual procedure of a seven-minute round of questions. And, members, in front of you is the legislative summary for Bill C-6, an Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (visual identification of voters). Although the minister is here and has a number of bills before us, it would be very helpful to stay focused on this particular bill. We'll deal with the other ones as they come up.

Minister, I'm going to offer you the floor for your opening statement, please. Welcome. Could you introduce your team?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

That wraps up this session. I want on behalf of the committee to thank all the witnesses for the time you took to prepare for today and for the fact that you actually came here. You gave very insightful answers. On behalf of the committee, I appreciate this very much. All Canadians thank you for your work and your commitment.

You are excused. Thank you.

Colleagues, we are going to take the last few minutes. There is a meeting in this room right after us, so we have to hurry. I will mention that there have been discussions taking place, and I think we've solved the steering committee issue, in that we've agreed to meet on Monday at eleven o'clock in Room 112-N.

The issue of who participates in that committee has not been resolved; however, I feel it's important to get through that committee meeting first. The reason is, I'm not wishing to entertain motions of any kind when there is legislation before us until I am instructed by the steering committee.

If I may just drift aside for one second, I would like to apologize to Madam Redman. In my attempt to maintain civility here in the committee, I think I crossed the line, and I offer my sincerest apologies. You have my greatest respect and admiration. I apologize for the sternness of my comments. In no way did I mean them to be that way. I also apologize to members of the committee for the same reasons.

Colleagues, we have the possibility of ordering in the minister for one hour on Tuesday from eleven to twelve on Bill C-6, and from twelve to one on Bill C-18. We also have some more witnesses we will try to set up for Thursday. It looks as though we are going to have another four witnesses on this particular issue for Thursday.

Perhaps I should ask whether that's acceptable, at this stage of the game, to the committee members.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

It's for Bill C-6, the bills and voting.

Canada Elections Act

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, here we go again trying to deal with the problems of Bill C-31. I know that might not be the kind of comment that the government wants to hear but it has to look reality in the face. The only reason this bill is in front of us is because of what I said Bill C-31 was from the beginning, which is a solution looking for a problem.

We have found a couple of bills to date. We have Bill C-18, which is what we are debating today, and we have Bill C-6. I suppose we will have a couple more bills before it is all over.

If we go through the bill, one clause states that when swearing an oath to prove someone's identity, the person who vouches for another individual does not necessarily need a civic address on his or her ID if the information on the voters list matches up with the information on the ID.

The committee heard from groups of advocates, people representing the homeless, people representing aboriginal people and people representing students. The people representing the aboriginal people were very clear on this issue of civic address and all members of the committee heard it. They said that we would have problems identifying voters because some people do not have a civic address. I invite all members of the House, including members who may have been on the committee, to look at the blues and read the witnesses' comments where they invited us to look at this concern.

What they were saying is that if we were to go ahead and do this, we would be disenfranchising people, and did we disenfranchise people. We disenfranchised not a couple of hundred or a couple of thousand, but probably millions of people. Why? It is because the House, in its infinite wisdom, passed a bill that was not sufficient. It was not sufficient because the committee, I would submit, did not do its homework.

I asked the committee for more time to hear from witnesses beyond the list that we had in front of us and I was told, in the instance of the privacy commissioner, no because it had already heard from her. I had to take it upon myself to write to her and obtain a response about the whole issue of privacy and birthdate information. She readily supplied me with an opinion of the bill contrary to what members of the committee had believed, which was that there were concerns about privacy in the bill.

I would submit that we have in front of us a bill that is trying to mop up the mess that was created by a bill from the government. I would like members, perhaps during questions and comments or to seek me out afterward, to provide me with an explanation or an instance where Parliament has passed a bill and, within months of it coming into force, has had to come up with further bills to deal with the problems in the initial bill. We are now up to two bills, and counting, based on the flaws and problems in Bill C-31.

I know members of the government will say that I did not raise these problems in committee and that I did not have the wisdom of knowing that these things would come up. I would suggest that I did not foresee all of the problems but I certainly saw the problem, which was the way Bill C-31 was crafted.

The crafting of the bill was taken from a committee report. What seems to be the Conservative Party playbook is that committees are used to put forward one's agenda. A fairly lengthy report was written by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, there was a government response and within a week a bill was in front of us called Bill C-31.

Bill C-31 was introduced because there was a concern about potential voter fraud, and I triple underline “potential”. When this was put in front of parliamentarians, they said that it had to be dealt with right away and cleaned up. In fact, that is what the committee did by way of hearing from a limited, in my opinion, number of witnesses.

It heard from witnesses like the Chief Electoral Officer who was asked if voter fraud was a major problem. They all heard quite clearly that it was not and that there had been approximately four cases of potential voter fraud in the last three elections.

We spent a large amount of time on it and we are spending more now trying to deal with this outrageous problem of voter fraud, but I have to give the government credit because it was clear in saying that it was potential voter fraud.

I have to submit that the concerns of my constituents are around cleaning up politics, ethics in politics, and integrity in the system. There is much more concern about candidate fraud, when candidates say they are with one party one day but wake up the next and lo and behold they are not a Liberal candidate anymore but rather a Conservative cabinet minister. Constituents are more concerned about how to deal with that kind of lack of integrity, where people can run for a party, cross the floor, and virtually within minutes it seems jump into government or into cabinet.

How about going from the backroom of the Conservative Party into the Senate and then vaulting into cabinet? Those are the concerns that my constituents have around the integrity of our electoral system. They are not concerned about potential voter fraud other than not to make matters worse.

Excluding my party, what Parliament has done is pass a bill that disenfranchised so many people. In committee we talk about this often and say we should always be vigilant for the unintended consequences of legislation. We all know this. We heard from people who were advocates of the homeless and from aboriginal people.

We are talking about people who are living in rural areas. We identified that what we have now in front of us is a concern about actual addresses. We heard from people who were representing students. The surprising fact is that when we were at committee they told us quite clearly this would be a problem.

What did we do? We did not consider it to be that big a problem and that it would all be fine because we knew better. Well, we did not know better and here we are with a bill to prove it. It is Bill C-18.

What we did not do is consult. I have said it before, that our job is to consult and after we have consulted, consult some more until we are absolutely sure we have done our homework. That is not the case in the instance of Bill C-31. We in fact had worse than that. It was not unintended consequences but some intended consequences with birth date information. It bears repeating that in Bill C-31 there were unintended consequences.

We did not hear this from witnesses and everyday people at all, this need to have birth dates on the voters list as an oversight requirement. However, what was really strange and quite disturbing was that we had intended consequences at committee. Not only would the bill have one's birth date information on the voters list but it would be shared with political parties.

In this instance it was not unintended consequences but very intentional. Our friends from the Bloc brought forward a motion at committee supported by the Liberals. The government joined me in opposing the amendment but lo and behold by the time it got to the House for third reading, it lost its courage to fight for the privacy of Canadians and it collapsed.

As my friend from Winnipeg Centre said the other day, the government folded like a cheap suit. It just said, oh well, for the interest of getting the bill through it needed to ensure that it let the amendment go through. My goodness, we had the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, in a letter that I gave to the committee, ask:

Is the problem of voter fraud so serious and sufficiently widespread to require the use of additional personal information? If it is a serious problem, is it necessary to provide polling clerks with the date of birth or can the same objective be achieved using less detailed information?

She was clear in saying that we should not, but again we had the government and the opposition parties saying that it was okay, that they would let date of birth information go through and share it with political parties.

This kind of information is analogous to giving people, who would like to use this information for fraud purposes, a little kit. I was calling it a government sponsored identity theft kit. That is what we are giving people.

Members know that there have been recent reports about concerns regarding credit card theft and people who are able to access bank accounts. What do they need? They need a date of birth and an address, and a lot of harm can be done. We were going to give this not only to poll clerks where, with all due respect to them, that information might get lost, but also to political parties.

I know the Liberal Party wanted it because it needed to do a little more in terms of fundraising. The Bloc said that is how it does it and that it had done it before in Quebec. I have no idea what the government was going to do with it. I guess one day it will tell me or it will be written in one of its member's memoirs.

In the meantime, what we have is a privacy problem within this bill. Then we have a problem with leaving hundreds of thousands of people off the voters lists, and now we have Bill C-18 in front of us. I submit that not only did the government not get the job done and did not do its homework on this bill but that we also opened it up to having the unintended consequence of invading people's privacy.

We really have to question why, at a time when all politicians and all parties are saying we want more people to vote and we want to get young people interested in politics, we put up these barriers.

I have to give the example of Ontario, where Ontario has made some changes to the requirements to vote. It did not do a very good job at all in telling people that when they go to the voting stations now they have to provide some ID. Voters have to tell the poll clerks their names, their postal codes, et cetera. Having taken part in the most recent provincial election, I know of a senior in my riding who, when I knocked on her door to ask her if she was going to vote, said “I tried to vote but they would not let me”.

That is exactly what is going to happen in the next federal election and I am not sure that this bill is going to solve that problem. The reason she said that is because she did not have the required ID and she had no one to vouch for her.

I can guarantee members that that will be the situation for hundreds and thousands, if not more, Canadians if we do not change the law. The law needs to be changed for people who do not have the requisite identification, in this case a senior who had lived in this particular domicile for more than a decade and did not have the requisite ID. We are going to see people disenfranchised like never before.

In fact, what we will see unless we change the law, with something like a statutory declaration, is people who are disenfranchised in the rural areas, in the north, in the urban areas, as well as homeless and transient people.

What we need to do is take a good look at this bill and at what the poison pills are in this bill. We saw the poison pills in Bill C-31. Are there any in here? I would submit there are a couple and I would just ask the government to do a very simple thing and look at enumeration. Why in heaven's name is it not going to engage in universal enumeration at every election for the universal suffrage of all of our citizens that we so obviously respect?

The other thing is not only to have universal enumeration and spend money there, but to make sure we train people properly. Those are nuts and bolts things, common sense things that we put forward at committee. The statutory declaration was another thing.

Finally, regarding the voting cards that everyone is so concerned about, and I am one of them, that are ubiquitous in some of these lobbies, put them in envelopes for goodness' sakes, address them to the voters, and if the voters are not present at those domiciles, they would be returned.

Presently, these cards are left around and open to potential voter fraud, I agree, but for goodness' sake, use this terrific new technology called an envelope, address it to the elector, and if the person does not live there anymore, it will be returned to sender, in this case to Elections Canada.

That is yet another way we can improve the system. It is another suggestion the NDP had. We should clean up the voters list, make sure we have actual human beings going door to door to clean it up, put the voters cards in envelopes, and ensure that there is a safety gap with the statutory declaration.

I must say that some of the critiques about statutory declarations are ridiculous. It suggests to me that there is mistrust among some members of everyday people, of citizens of Canada. As I said, there should be more scrutiny of people who cross the floor than citizens who are trying to engage in their franchise.

We will have to go to committee and try to fix yet another government bill, a mess that was made with the mélange of the three parties to ensure that Canadians will not be left out.

Members should read the blues of the committee. We were told by the Chief Electoral Officer that the way Bill C-31 was written and the way this bill is written now, goodness knows the way this bill was put through without us trying to fix it, people will show up at polling stations and will be sent away. They will not return.

That is what will happen at five minutes to eight or five minutes to nine, just before the poll closes, if people have to go get more ID because they do not have sufficient ID or they have to find another person to vouch for them. I can guarantee that people who have been voting all their lives, particularly people like the senior referenced in the Ontario election who had voted all her life, will just plain give up, and that is pathetic. It says that we have not done our job here.

I am not willing to do that, to allow our government to provide legislation that will disenfranchise. My party will not and I will not. We will make sure this bill, from our perspective, will make sure that Canadians, every day people, will not be disenfranchised. Then we will have some semblance of common sense in our electoral system.

I sincerely hope that the government will engage us this time in some of the ideas I have put forward, three straightforward ideas, and that it will take a look at it with honesty and sincerity, and say that maybe this is not a bad idea.

When we are talking about our democracy, the foundation and the franchise, people fought for it, as we just celebrated on Remembrance Day. To just let it fray away, to watch it be torn apart because of either ill-conceived notions or worse, as I said before, conceived notions, is not something we in this party will stand by and see happen.

I will just wrap up with a couple of comments about what can be done to ensure, through witnesses at committee, that we not have the fiasco and the mess we had with Bill C-31 yet again.

I would ask that parliamentarians go to their ridings. I have done this already. I have talked to people about the proposition of not only Bill C-31, but further to Bill C-31, Bill C-6 and Bill C-18. I am not sure as many people were engaged with Bill C-31. There has been a wake-up call, clearly, because of the mess of Bill C-31, and the fact that we have disenfranchised in a blink hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Canadians.

However, hon. members should talk to everyday people in their constituencies and ask them what would happen tomorrow if they had to follow the requirements of the present legislation before us. Would they be able to vote? Would they have a problem finding someone to vouch for them? Would they have the requisite ID? Hon. members should go to a seniors residence, go to a homeless shelter, talk to some students, and then find out from them if there are problems, because that is the business of consultation.

That is what I did last week vis-à-vis Bill C-6, and I heard a lot of concerns. I would plead, almost beg, with members of Parliament to talk to their constituents on this bill because we did not consult enough last time. Let that not happen again.

Let us engage our citizens on this. It is their right. We are making up the rules here for them. We made a mess of it with Bill C-31. We need not do that again. Hon. members should talk to their constituents and then bring witnesses forward to committee through their respective representatives on committee, so we can hear from everyday people about how this would affect them. That did not happen last time.

The people who did come forward warned us that there would be problems, but sadly, members did not listen to them. Our party did. That is why we voted against Bill C-31.

We now have two bills which are trying to clean up Bill C-31. I am not sure if this is a record. I will have to look it up. We need to clean this up.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, this is not the only problem we have seen with Bill C-31. We just had another with Bill C-6.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad the member finished the way he did. We hear many things in the House which are specious, disingenuous and condescending. Both being new members in the House, I congratulate my colleague on being such a fast learner.

The member talked about the charter of rights, which everyone upholds. The government also has an obligation, including opposition parties, to ensure that those rights are not abused, which does not suggest for a second that any rural voter has abused those rights. I come from a riding where there was evidence of significant voter fraud during the last two elections. It is important that we uphold the rights of the charter. It is also important for us to ensure that those rights are not abused.

I thank the hon. member for his support for Bill C-6, an important issue which needed to be cleared up by all parties because all parties wanted it.

My colleague, the parliamentary secretary, did point out that all parties cooperated on recovering from an error that was made as an honest mistake by members of all parties. Therefore, there is a lot of blame to share. There is also a lot of credit to share, and the parliamentary secretary did attempt to share that credit with all members of the House.

The member spoke for 20 minutes and the last minute was terrific. The first 19 minutes qualified as those characteristics of parliamentary debate which do not sound good in this place.

Is he going to support this, yes or no? It is important and we all want it. Let us not hold it up. Let us just get on with it, support it and correct what has been done.

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

Mr. Speaker, I almost rose on a question of privilege when my friend referred to me as the new democratic reform critic. I think what he meant was the new critic on democratic reform for my party. It is almost in the way things are said, not what is actually said.

With that in mind, I do want to congratulate the parliamentary secretary. I would have had many questions for him, but I will pose those questions hypothetically to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the public who may be listening.

If this is a housekeeping bill and will cure the problem of a vast number of rural voters being unable to vote now because of a gap in the legislation, and if it is that non-contentious, and if it means so much to enfranchise over a million voters in this country in Liberal, Conservative and other party ridings, then why was it not given higher priority than Bill C-6, which we just debated, which by and large seems to affect an extremely small number of people, which seems to respond to a problem that does not exist?

Why was this legislation not given priority over a number of other bills that have achieved headlines far and wide across the country? Perhaps the answer is in my question itself: because it is better politics to get more press than to do what is right for over a million voters in this country.

Briefly speaking of Bill C-18, it is true that the parliamentary secretary has worked very hard in trying to get all parties together to bridge the gap that exists with respect to so many voters. It is true that discussions were held. It is true that a number of people have been consulted with respect to drafting the bill. But it is equally true that the government has misrepresented the facts which underlie the reason that we are here today.

If everybody had listened intently to the parliamentary secretary and to the Minister for Democratic Reform himself, it would seem that the Conservative Party is riding forth like the knight on the white horse to cure this problem. The truth is they sat on it; they ignored advice that came to their attention, or I guess in a legal standard, should have come to their attention as government earlier on, and I will get to that in a minute.

In announcing that the bill would be introduced, the Minister for Democratic Reform said, “Once again our government is showing real leadership by taking quick, decisive action to strengthen our voting system by addressing the problem of verifying the residence of voters”. I agree with everything there except “real leadership“ and “taking quick, decisive action”. He also said, “The legislative solution introduced today will ensure that legitimate voters will be able to exercise their fundamental democratic right to vote”.

I might remind all members of the House and some on the other side of the lack of fanfare or even notice of the fact that we have a Charter of Rights, and that the Charter of Rights is celebrating its 25th anniversary. I, as a relatively young member of Parliament, am a child of the charter. The charter in section 3, and I bet if I had a quiz on the charter, people could not pick the section that guarantees this right, which is the basis upon which this debate should begin and end, the democratic right of citizens, states that 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. It is a very short section. I actually counted the words. That section has the fewest words in the whole Charter of Rights, but it is so succinct.

I find it kind of interesting when we look at the democratic reform ethos of the Conservative government how it has been interpreted by the courts has largely been with respect to the rights of inmates and judges to vote. Who would have thought that those two groups would be put together in terms of rights?

There have been significant court cases on whether inmates have the right to vote. People convicted of serious crimes are now determined by our courts to have the right to vote. So fundamental is this right, yet it would seem that the government, in its wisdom, by forging ahead with Bill C-6, might in effect be depriving a few unconvicted, uncharged citizens of this country who profess their religious beliefs of the right to vote, but inmates have the right to vote. I find that a curious turn of events given the government's very strong and strident support of an anti-crime agenda. The irony, of course, is quite delicious.

The other irony in the theme of my discussion and how it is not a case where once again the government is showing real leadership on that white horse is that in fact the Senate of Canada, one of those institutions that the government does not seem to really support, did in fact during its deliberations on Bill C-31 raise questions with respect to the qualification of voters, which as I indicated is guaranteed in the Charter of Rights. A group of senators reviewed the legislation, and let us remind ourselves that the other place has a duty to review legislation passed by the Commons.

We heard the parliamentary secretary for democratic reform in this House stand up and say, “Everybody missed it. Everybody in the Commons, all parties, missed it. It is just a big old mistake and a million people might not be able to vote. We are sorry. We put a whole bunch of bills ahead of this one because we care so much about those million voters in rural Canada who cannot vote. We are going to put a whole bunch of other bills ahead of this one and we are going to blame everybody equally.”

Not so fast. Let us work backward. On June 27, the bill itself, Bill C-31, received royal assent. Prior to that, in the month of May and before that time, the Senate of Canada was wrapping up its hearings. A number of questions were had of the Chief Electoral Officer at that time. Those questions went to identifying individuals who did not have addresses. The Chief Electoral Officer is another person who seems to be on the government's hit list. If we add it up, there are Muslim women and minority communities, the Senate of Canada, and now the Chief Electoral Officer. These are targets of the new government and its parliamentary secretaries, who wield such great power.

My friend who spoke to this bill today should be very mindful that the Chief Electoral Officer offered solutions himself, which came up as a result of the Senate's verification and review of legislation. He wrote, “In light of comments that I have already received”--as a result of Senate hearings--“I am considering broadening the list”--and he referred to identification--“to include attestation letters that could be signed by a person of authority in homeless shelters and student residences. Such letters would establish the residence of the individual and constitute one of the two pieces of identification required under section 143(2)(b)”.

It was also suggested there were problems, generally speaking, in ethnic communities with respect to voter turnout and verification.

He wrote to the questioner:

You had also suggested that Elections Canada should advertise in ethnic media to communicate the requirements for voter identification to the electorate and, in particular, ethnocultural communities. As part of its commitment to communicate clearly with a variety of groups within the electorate, Elections Canada has sought to tailor the information provided to ethnocultural communities.

He went on to describe what Elections Canada in fact had done in the ethnocultural communities and he talked about the attestation letters. The attestation letters prove the point that the Elections Canada officials are doing their job. The attestation letters were an afterthought as a result of the Senate hearings.

What we have is the Chief Electoral Officer, mindful that this is the act under which he is empowered, attempting to accommodate the law as written as a result of a verification and review in the other place. As a result, attestation letters are now, in practice, what prevails for homeless people, people in student dorms and other such facilities.

Would we not think that the question might be that in its thorough review of this legislation the government ought to have addressed the issue of attestation letters and made it, rather than a practice, the law? And would we not think that, and we may get to this when we send this to committee and correct it, in a thorough review, having had the experience of the byelections, the government would make it a priority to fix whatever flaws it had seen in Bill C-31?

In effect, do members not think the minister responsible, who wanted quick and decisive action, and the parliamentary secretary, who lives in a semi-rural riding, might have thought it very important to review what was already on the books in terms of committee work, or does the world for the Conservative government and the officers of democratic reform for the government end when the bill is presented to the Senate?

I suggest, not. I suggest that whatever happens in the Senate in the review of a bill is very much within the purview of the Minister for Democratic Reform. If he were not so busy taking questions for the Prime Minister and other people who are ducking issues, he would probably have time to do that. It also falls within the purview of the parliamentary secretary. He should have reviewed the work done by the Senate.

However, I am not here to defend the Senate on this item. I am here to defend the Chief Electoral Officer, who responded to a Senate inquiry. It is almost as if the democratic reform team over there did not exist. The real work was being done in the trenches by the Chief Electoral Officer and by serious senators who were involved in the review of the legislation.

In summary, it is very important for us to remember that the bill will, when taken to committee and fixed in a number of ways with the leadership that other members of the committee will offer to the bill, attempt to fix a problem that was actually created when it was decided we all must have forms of identification to vote.

If I could be non-partisan for a minute, we have to realize that we made a change when we decided in Bill C-31 that everybody had to show identification to vote. We owe it to ourselves to understand that in some countries this is the case and in others it is not. Clearly with respect to the over million rural voters, it effectively disenfranchised them. One has to ask the question we asked throughout the Bill C-6 debate. What was the problem before? Was there widespread abuse or fraud, concealment of identity or multiple voting in the rural ridings of Canada? I do not recall complaints made to Elections Canada.

It is like Bill C-6 where we do not have a single complaint to Elections Canada about voter fraud. We have the hums and ha's of the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, who may have been driving by and saw people with pumpkins on their heads and somehow this became a very large issue.

What we have in this case is probably what will be the rub of the discussion. The serious rub of the discussion for members of Parliament is whether we will go to full identification, meaning photo identification. Countries in the democratic reform capacity not as sophisticated and not as developed as us have gone to that way. There are countries in west Africa that require photo identification to vote.

We have photo identification and a comparison against it, as said in legislation, to have a passport, which will allow us to enter other countries and to re-enter Canada. We have photo identification required by law by many provinces to have a driver's licence. We have photo identification requirements in many administrative and quasi-administrative instances in the country where government agencies are involved.

Do we want to take that bold grand leap toward photo identification for voting? It is a question with which we must all come to terms, be mature about and decide whether we want that. However, if we do not go there, if we do not jump in that large ocean, then we have to stay on the shore. There is no half-way on this.

It seems to me that whatever happened at Bill C-31, whatever happened in the Commons during the debate and in the Senate during its purview, with the poor Chief Electoral Officer trying to keep the middle ground, we have a situation where we are half wet. We have a situation where the first means of voting is to show one's picture ID, but the law does not say that the returning officer in charge has to compare one's face to the photo ID. It seems to be assumed that people would do that, but after all we are here to make law.

We are not here to just to recount our personal experiences. We are not here to talk about pumpkins at polling stations. We are not here to talk about multiple votes without proof. We are not here to talk about the anecdotes. This is a serious place where laws are made.

If we are to have a debate, the debate should be that if we say photo ID is one way of proving people's ability to exercise their charter right to vote, then we should also say that the photo ID should be compared to people's faces, which requires people to show their face. The law does not say that. Worse, the law goes on to say that the person only has to produce, as a second means of voting, two pieces of ID which have an address on it. As interpreted, those addresses have to concur with the list of electors. That is yet again a situation where no person's face is required to be shown. We are half wet on this issue. It is incongruous and very difficult for the Chief Electoral Officer to be sure that everyone who votes is voting.

Then we have to ask the question about our history. I would think that this particularly applies to rural Canada. In our history do we have such widespread voter fraud and multiple voting situations that we have to go that far? I would think not. What we have to rely on are the principles of trust, that when a Canadian citizen comes to the voting box, then in our heads, as lawmakers, as government officials and as the delegated responsible persons from Elections Canada, we should think of section 3 of the charter, “Every citizen in Canada has the right to vote”. It should be written large in both official languages at every polling station. We should do our utmost as parliamentarians to ensure that has been put into effect.

What has happened here is, in our rush to be half modern and half photogenic, we have said that one has to fit with the other.

On the positive side, the bill will go some way to cure a problem that exists because of our zealous pursuit of attempting to get rural people, our large rural population, to conform perhaps to a metropolitan view of how we identify ourselves. I think it is an identity issue. I think it is an issue that defines us as a nation.

In our country we have had periods in some cases of rapid urbanization and we have had periods of slow urbanization. I submit that in this history of our country, and what better place to do this than in the House, parts of western Canada were rapidly de-ruralized and rural Canada lost a lot of its character in the period which we now know as the dust bowl period.

We know that in periods of economic recession, parts of eastern Canada were denuded of its people. One only has to look at the outport situation in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador to know that people were pulled away from their rural roots.

The process of de-ruralization is occurring much slower in my province and in the rest of the Maritimes, but it is happening. We are becoming, as the last census showed, an urban nation.

What Bill C-31 did was it added insult to injury to rural Canadians by saying, “We are going to apply a city standard to rural Canadians. We are going to apply a metropolitan standard to rural Canadians. You shall be like us”.

What the good part of Bill C-18 suggests is that we are apologizing, as parliamentarians from all sides, to rural Canadians. We are saying that we were a little too hasty, a little too urban in our thought and we apologize. We are saying that rural Canadians have the same rights as we do as guaranteed by section 3 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.

Kudos to rural Canada and kudos to Bill C-18. We will fix and add to it, as we will at committee, and it will make good legislation.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, since this morning, I have felt a light breeze of hysteria blowing on this side of the House. Accordingly, I have decided that I should speak on this bill.

As politicians who have to face the electorate, we always state that the right to vote is not only a right, but should also be an obligation. So it works both ways. From that statement it follows that we must be able to establish the identity of the people who come to vote and to express their democratic choice.

I have heard many comments. They all came back to the fact that one could—at least, that is how it appeared to me—attack some segment of the population. In other words, the comments were discriminatory in some respect, which should not be the case. To exercise the right to vote, one must at least be capable of satisfactorily proving one's identity.

It would, perhaps, be interesting to look at the chronology of the events concerning voting with the face covered. We have gone through a similar situation in Quebec. Let us start at the beginning.

On March 22, 2007 the chief electoral officer of Quebec confirmed that women wearing veils could vote in the provincial election on March 26, even if they refused to uncover their face. Radio program hosts launched a campaign to persuade voters to go and vote with their face covered as a protest against the decision of the chief electoral officer.

On March 23, confronted with a public outcry and the possibility of seeing the election turn into a masked ball, the chief electoral officer of Quebec changed the electoral act: all voters would have to have their face uncovered.

On June 19, the members of the House of Commons adopted Bill C-31 to amend the Canada Elections Act. The bill provides for a photo identification procedure.

On September 6, the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada announced that women wearing veils could vote in the next federal election and in the September 17 byelections in Quebec without being required to uncover their face.

On September 7, the Liberal party, the Conservative party and the Bloc Québécois called on the Chief Electoral Officer to reverse his decision. The Muslim community of Montreal also expressed its disagreement with the new policy. The following day, of course, the New Democratic party reconsidered and demanded that the position of the Chief Electoral Officer be reviewed.

On September 10, at a news conference, Marc Mayrand, the Chief Electoral Officer, stated that he had no intention of using his exceptional power to reverse the situation before the September 17 byelections. On that date, at least four women voted in the byelection in Outremont wearing a burka, to show their disagreement with the Chief Electoral Officer. One man, in a wheelchair, voted wearing a balaclava.

On October 17, in his Speech from the Throne, the Conservative government gave notice of its intention to introduce a bill prohibiting electors from voting with their face covered. On October 23, as we had already announced, the Bloc Québécois introduced a bill to prohibit people from voting with their face veiled. On October 26, the Conservative government came up with a bill to prohibit anyone from voting in an election with his or her face covered.

Of course, the Bloc Québécois supports this bill in principle. However, we feel that there are certain provisions which, while not absurd, will have to be reviewed and probably amended. We are finding that the bill introduced by the government does not fully reflect the principle that all are equal before the law.

Indeed, the bill opens the door to violations of the principle of equality between men and women. The first five clauses of Bill C-6 were included to allow deputy returning officers and poll clerks to delegate their powers to another individual. This means that a male deputy returning officer could accommodate a female voter by designating a woman in front of whom she could uncover her face to confirm her identity.

The Bloc Québécois feels that this is unacceptable. We will, of course, support the bill at second reading, but we will demand that the first five clauses be repealed.

The bill also includes some exceptions. For example, a person who must keep his or her face covered for medical reasons could still vote by providing two authorized pieces of identification and by taking an oath. Bill C-6 also adds new provisions to the act that allow returning officers to appoint additional persons in polling stations, and to also delegate some of their responsibilities.

As I mentioned earlier, I heard some very strange comments, primarily from Liberal members, who said that this is a witch hunt, that we do not have the right to prohibit people from voting with their face covered, and that we were directly targeting a community. In fact, our position is based on the very principle of democracy, on the right to vote, and on the need to make it practically impossible to use someone else's identity.

Not so long ago, it would have been unthinkable for any voter to show up with their face veiled or otherwise covered, preventing their identification. Now, in a specific context where there is much discussion everywhere about reasonable accommodations, a common knee jerk reaction in some people is to often use certain pretexts to find fault with those who wear a veil or cover their faces otherwise. In Roberval, a veiled woman showed up and voted. We are not necessarily talking about a burka here.

This goes to show how the door can be opened for individuals who are probably looking to make a mockery of the whole situation and to demonstrate that it is possible to vote without proper identification.

I was quite surprised by the Liberals' reaction, especially given what the leader of the Liberal Party had said. The Canadian Press quoted him on September 9 as saying, “We disagree with Elections Canada decision and we ask them to revisit their decision. At the end of the day, you must be able to identify yourself when you vote”.

It was the Liberal leader who said that. Later, he stated that, on the one hand, he disagreed with Elections Canada's decision not to reconsider the issue of uncovered faces but that, on the other hand, he might be able to live with the provisions of the existing legislation. This means that, at one time, all political leaders in this House were singing the same tune, saying that identification was necessary to vote.

Several principles guide the Bloc Québécois' position on this issue. As I said earlier, the Bloc Québécois supports the bill. All voters should be equal before the law. I also indicated that, in 2007, the lawmaker amended the Elections Act to tighten the requirements with respect to voter identification. Among other things, Bill C-31, which was passed by the House of Commons in February 2007, no longer allowed people to vouch for more than one elector and required photo ID to be able to vote.

The Bloc Québécois and the other political parties believed that the Elections Act was clear enough and that by requiring voters to prove their identity, it was implicitly requiring them to uncover their faces.

However, because the Chief Electoral Officer refused to use his exceptional power to require that all voters uncover their faces, the Bloc Québécois believes that the act needs to be amended as soon as possible, as we are doing. That is why we introduced our own bill.

We must not forget that groups representing Muslim women assert that they have never asked to be accommodated in this regard. In an interview with Radio-Canada, Asmaa Ibnouzahir of Présence musulmane Montréal said:

These women have been voting for years, and they have never asked for special treatment, even though they know they could. They themselves took the initiative to show their faces, just as they do at customs or the passport office, because they believed it made sense for security reasons. So for them, it is perfectly natural to uncover their faces.

I believe that this quote is enough to put an end to the debate about the requirement to uncover one's face when voting. I therefore ask the Liberal Party to reconsider its position and face facts: in the interests of democracy, people must vote with their faces uncovered.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the truth is that this is just the latest manifestation of the government's politics of division and discord. We have only to look to the termination of the court challenges program or the government's opposition to the equal treatment of gays and lesbians as examples of its approach to governing.

The reality is this is a non-issue that the government has whipped up into tempest for its own narrow and limited political objectives. If the government wanted to address real issues facing our country in terms of elections, it could look to ways of addressing very serious concerns like ever shrinking voter turnout at election time.

In federal elections we are averaging only 66% voter turnout. At the provincial and municipal levels of government it is even worse, where turnout levels are in the 50% and 25% ranges, respectively.

Clearly, there is need to reform our electoral system to encourage more Canadians to vote, not to find or create situations that discourage voting. Simply put, Bill C-6 is another example of the government's pattern of targeting specific groups of Canadians. It is just not appropriate or fair.

Instead of simply aiming laws like Bill C-6 at one particular group in our country, we should be embarking upon a thorough and comprehensive review of our electoral system. We need to look at broad based issues. This could include the issue of photographic identification. Is it something we should require? Is it practical?

The reality is that current law, as noted before, does not require photographic identification. This is something we can look at in the context of a comprehensive review of voting regulations. Similarly, there are other means of voting that we need to look at in order to encourage Canadians to vote.

We have an aging population that finds it increasingly more difficult to vote. As the number of older Canadians grow, there are real challenges to their ability to exercise their right to vote at polling stations. This is especially true during winter campaigns.

Although there are some processes available to allow people in these situations to vote, they are cumbersome and act in reality as a deterrent to voting. Likewise, many Canadians travel during winter months and in winter elections may not have the opportunity to exercise their right to vote at polling stations. Again, while there are mail-in ballots, we should look at the process to determine how it might be made easier for overseas Canadians to vote.

Another major and ever increasing issue is that of apathy found among young Canadians in exercising their right to vote. These Canadians are the future of our country. What can we do to encourage them to vote?

We need to address issues like these because they are issues of substance. They speak to the heart of the issues facing our electoral system. Instead of playing political games with issues like those found in connection with Bill C-6, we should be looking to address these real and pressing concerns.

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a compelling document. However, it is not only a document; it is the spirit of our country. It is the expression of the values we hold dear to our hearts as citizens of our great country. It is also something the government finds an inconvenience.

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms speaks to our equality and the right to the free expression of our religious beliefs. Bill C-6, in essence, is looking upon the issue as some kind of cultural matter. The use of the veil is not cultural. It is an expression for Muslim women of their religious beliefs.

In view of the fact that the current election law does not require photographic identification, in view of the fact that mail-in ballots are permitted by the election law, in view of the fact that this issue has not been raised by the Muslim community that it directly affects and in view of the fact that voters can simply vote using a utility bill or a bank statement, why is the government raising this issue?

It is really my original question once again. Why? The government needs to answer this question truthfully.

It was the great philosopher Aristotle who said, “Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects”. This statement is something we should all consider today in the House as we debate the government's proposed law.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Brampton West.

As we debate various legislative proposals in the House, we are most often dealing with what we would describe as the “what” question. What is the bill designed to do? What does it change? What does it replace in terms of current law? However, I must confess, like many of my colleagues in the House, that I am asking the “why” question when it comes to the Conservative government's Bill C-6. Why has the government brought forward this legislation and why at this time?

First, one could ask whether there is a pressing and widespread problem with respect to the integrity of the voting process in regard to women who choose, for religious reasons, to wear a veil. Quite frankly, this is simply not the case. If it were not for the fact that some politicians have raised this issue, I am not sure it would have materialized as a major concern for Canadians, their elected representatives or observers in the political arena in our country.

I read with interest a quotation from the head of the Islamic Association of Nova Scotia, who said of this issue:

There was no controversy. The Muslim community never complained. The women would gladly take off their veil for a woman official.

I will not dwell too much upon the possible reasons for the government to bring forward Bill C-6, but let us consider the normal motivation for legislative initiatives.

The primary and appropriate motivation is based upon a sound and pressing policy requirement. In other words, the introduction of a piece of law is based upon sound public policy and the greater good of our society.

The second and less acceptable motivation is for political purposes. In view of the fact that this issue is not of concern to Elections Canada and was not clearly in need of urgent remedial action, I can only leave members of the House to draw their own conclusions in regard to what has motivated the government to introduce Bill C-6.

I believe a number of my colleagues have already raised the issue of mail-in ballots in regard to Bill C-6. While the government seems preoccupied with respect to the issue of veiled women having to remove their veils in voting stations, it seems to be perfectly comfortable with the concept of mail-in ballots.

In the 2006 federal election there were approximately 80,000 mail-in ballots. Obviously it is, by very definition and practice, not possible to visually confirm the identification of a voter using a mail-in ballot.

Furthermore, Bill C-6 and current election law do not even require the presentation of photographic identification for the purpose of casting a ballot in a federal general election.

In practical terms then, Bill C-6 could create a scenario where veiled voters are required to unveil themselves after having presented several pieces of non-photographic identification. What possible benefit is derived from this unless the polling official personally knows the voter? The practical realities of Bill C-6 are simply absurd.

We should also take note of the fact that in nations like the United Kingdom there has been talk of addressing voter turnout issues by permitting voting over the Internet. Clearly, the future will likely include the use of such tools to facilitate easier voting by citizens in Canada. When and if this comes to Canada, it will only further relegate to insignificance legislation like Bill C-6.

The real motivation of the government is clear to many observers. The Global and Mail editorial page recently expressed the thoughts of many reasonable observers when it stated in regard to Bill C-6 the following:

Pandering to...prejudice is a cheap way to win votes. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is pandering by introducing a bill to force veiled Muslim women to show their faces at polls.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I partially answered that question earlier. It is very dangerous, on the basis of Bill C-6, to say that this is a strictly racial issue. The Liberals are playing a dangerous game this morning.

The member's example was the same as one I mentioned before. A voter who arrives more or less disguised at the polling station must identify themselves, as must any Muslim woman who wears a veil. It is purely a matter of identifying the voter. My colleague is right; there are even precedents in Morocco where some accommodations can be made. However, when a citizen appears before a deputy returning officer, he or she must be able to identify the voter. This is the purpose of the act, a principle which the Liberal Party should support this morning.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I participate today in this debate on Bill C-6, which here and now, in this House, renews the debate on veiled voting.

In these early hours of this debate here in the House of Commons, the whole issue surrounding this bill is a very emotional one. I see that my colleague who spoke this morning and gave a speech filled with emotion is now leaving the House. I can see this is a very emotional issue.

I want to begin by saying that I have a great deal of difficulty, after hearing the first comments by the Liberals, in understanding the Liberal Party's position today in this House. As recently as September 7 of this year, the Liberal Party of Canada was calling for amendments to the act. It called on the Chief Electoral Officer to take action and to reverse the decision he made concerning voting in the byelections that were to take place on September 17 in Quebec. Indeed, it is hard to understand today's statements by the Liberals on this matter, when we heard the leader of the Liberal Party stating the opposite on September 7.

However, the debate here is not new. We must remember that it is part of the debate that has been taking place in Quebec in the context of two recent votes. I think first of the byelection that confirmed the election of Pauline Marois. As it happens, while the issue of veiled women voting was not at the heart of the campaign it certainly was raised during that byelection.

We must also recall that this debate was also raised during the September 17 byelections in Quebec. As a matter of fact, the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada announced that women wearing veils could vote in the next federal election and in the Quebec byelections on September 17 without being required to uncover their faces. The following day, the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party—I emphasize that—and the Bloc Québécois intervened, calling on the Chief Electoral Officer to reverse that decision. Later, naturally after some pussyfooting and hesitation, the leader of the NDP thought better of it and also demanded that the Chief Electoral Officer's opinion be reviewed.

The result is that we are now considering Bill C-6 which seeks to amend the Canada Elections Act to require male and female voters to have uncovered faces when voting or registering to vote.

Of course, the bill before us today includes some exceptions, one of which involves allowing voters to keep their faces covered for health reasons, but only on the condition, of course, that two pieces of identification be presented.

Furthermore, under Bill C-6, certain exceptions would determine under what circumstances—and these are the cases for which the law provides flexibility—a voter must uncover his or her face.

I would remind the House that this kind of debate has already been raised this year, when we amended the Canada Elections Act in order to be able to confirm the identity of voters. As I recall, we thought that the problems raised in the context of the two byelections—especially the one on September 17—had been resolved by that amendment. However, Bill C-31, which we examined clause-by-clause in February 2007, made it mandatory for voters to produce photo identification in order to vote.

Thus, it seemed sufficiently clear that voters were obliged to prove their identity. Fundamentally, that is the spirit of this bill. It is not a racial question, as some members have said here today. Rather, it is a question of verifying the identity of voters. At the time, we thought that amending the Canada Elections Act through Bill C-31 was enough to clarify the situation regarding voter identification.

I would remind the House, however, that the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada refused to use his special authority to require all voters to uncover their faces in order to vote. The Bloc Québécois would like to see that legislation amended as quickly as possible. This is why my hon. colleague from Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord introduced Bill C-465, to amend the Canada Elections Act: in order to ensure that voters vote with their faces uncovered.

I would remind the House that this accommodation, which would allow certain voters to keep their face covered while voting, is not the sort of reasonable accommodation called for by the Muslim community.

I remember that, during an interview on Radio-Canada on September 10, 2007, Ms. Asmaa Ibnouzahir said that Muslim women had decided themselves to take the initiative and unveil their faces because they thought it was a normal thing to do so as a security matter, just as they do at the customs or the passport office. The Muslim community itself, therefore, as represented by Présence musulmane Montréal—an organization that is quite representative of the community—said that these women had been voting for years and had never asked for special treatment, although they knew they had the right to do so.

There is no demand or request for this kind of accommodation, which would mean that women would not need to uncover their face. That is why we need to act as quickly as possible. Is Bill C-6 perfect? No, it is not, but it has the advantage of dealing with the situation in principle, in view of the fact that the Chief Electoral Officer refuses to use his powers under the Elections Act.

What are the imperfections in Bill C-6? We think that it does not abide by the principle of equality between men and women. Under the first five clauses in Bill C-6, deputy returning officers and poll clerks can delegate their powers to another person. Under this provision, a male deputy returning officer could therefore accommodate a female elector by designating a woman before whom the elector could uncover her face to confirm her identity. This is totally unacceptable.

It is as if citizens of Arab or Muslim origin came into my riding office but refused to be served by my assistant because she is a woman. I would tell these people that my assistant is perfectly competent and is there to serve the citizens. There is no possible doubt in this case that the equality of men and women is a basic right. I fail to see why this principle of the basic equality of men and women cannot be upheld in the bill.

I will finish by saying this is clearly an emotional debate. It is a debate that we need, though, because of our responsibility for democracy. We need to find the right balance in our ability to accommodate people. It is important to be able to identify people when they exercise their voting rights. Of course there can be some exceptions for medical reasons, but in general, we should ensure that when a citizen comes to a polling station, he or she must address the deputy returning officers or poll clerks who are there, regardless of whether they are men or women, and identify himself or herself, in accordance with the legislation that we are trying to amend today.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on this important issue of democratic freedom in our country.

As my esteemed colleague from Don Valley West has said, this is a flawed bill. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects the rights of an individual to freely practise his or her religion without interference from the state. Regretfully, the Conservatives are proposing legislation that not only will divide Canadians, but also targets a religious minority for no other reason but to pander to the politics of fear and ignorance.

The Conservatives are showing their disdain for rights and freedoms, and Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act, is a flawed piece of legislation. It represents a knee-jerk reaction that would require Muslim women to unveil their niqab or burka for the purpose of visual identification at the ballot box.

Canadians could be forgiven for thinking veiled Muslim women pose an urgent threat to the integrity of our electoral system, and therefore it appears that the Prime Minister has made it one of his priorities to force voters to show their faces at the polls. But is there any shred of evidence that such a problem existed in the first place? The Conservative government has admitted there was no apparent case of fraud in three federal byelections that were held in September in Quebec when unjustified hysteria over veiled Muslim women first boiled over.

So what is it that the Conservatives are trying to fix? If a problem does not exist, what are they trying to fix? I think what they are trying to fix is that “if you do not look like me or act like me, then you are a problem”. I think that is really unfair to a large population of over a million people who have been law-abiding citizens, who have voted and who have never faced discrimination of the nature that they are seeing at the moment.

The legislation was not crafted in response to any incident involving fraud. Rather, it is irrational and hysterical. If a problem did exist, why did the Prime Minister not include these provisions in the electoral bill that was passed by the House less than six months ago?

The Conservatives have tried to dress up this bill as a means to enhancing public confidence in the democratic process. But it has nothing to do with electoral integrity and everything to do with pandering to the narrow-minded fears about minorities, particularly in Quebec, where this troubling debate over reasonable accommodation is now raging.

What if there is a requirement for visual identification? At the moment visual identification is not required by law in a federal election. In fact, Canadians have the option in this country to vote by postal ballot, where no identification is required, yet the Conservative government firmly believes that veiled Muslim women are a threat. I challenge any member of the House to document one single incident of electoral fraud in Canada that was committed by a veiled Muslim woman.

As Canada's Chief Electoral Officer has pointed out, over 80,000 Canadians voted in the last federal election through the postal system and none of them were required to provide photo identification. Why? Because the law does not require it. These people are snowbirds and other Canadians who are out of the country during a federal election. Should we therefore disenfranchise 80,000 Canadians based on irrational fear?

It may interest members to know that Muslim women currently serving in the Canadian Forces are permitted to wear a hijab on duty. Is the government therefore trying to say to Muslim women that it is okay to serve on the front lines of the Canadian military, but it is not okay for them to wear a veil when they vote?

The Canadian Forces wants to recruit more Muslim women because we desperately need them. We are in Afghanistan, and really, the Conservatives have no idea of what they are doing there. They do not even know what pluralism or diversity means, so what is the message the Conservatives are trying to convey? Is the government trying to uphold the rights of only certain citizens and succumbing to fear and sudden whims that pose no threats? As parliamentarians, we are elected to represent our constituency, and I feel obligated to resist policies that are made on irrational impulses.

We are elected to look at and consider legislation. If it is based on reasoning and rational thought, then we approve it. On this occasion, the bill as it currently reads unfairly targets a religious minority. Also, not only is it contrary to my beliefs, but more important, it is contrary to the law as it currently exists.

I would strongly urge the government to reconsider this legislation and reflect on its responsibility to uphold democratic rights in the country. Considering how flawed the bill is and considering that it is targeting only one community, it is important that it be tightened up, the flaws reviewed and the bill not passed, because it will never pass the charter challenge.

It is another example of the Conservatives' agenda of divisiveness and discrimination against one group. There are glaring inconsistencies and this is shamefully playing cheap politics at the expense of Canadian Muslims. It will not achieve anything. It will not achieve its stated goal of improving visual identification except in wanting one group to lift its veil. Really, it is a veiled attempt at discrimination against one group.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I rather enjoyed my hon. colleague's silly diatribe, or entertaining diatribe I should say. He talked about blowing bubbles. Frankly, I think he was blowing smoke because all parties in the House agreed that something needed to be done quickly. This government has shown leadership by tabling this bill.

We would love to move on to Bill C-18, which is a significant problem that the government has already dealt with expeditiously. We would ask for the opposition's help in doing this. Let us get Bill C-6 behind us. All four parties agreed that this needs to be done, so why are they stalling? Why are they not showing leadership on this issue? They talk about leadership. Let us show some leadership in the House together with the government and get it behind us so we can move on. We need to quit stalling and get on with it.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, our party sees the fundamental principle as the equality of men and women. It is a basic principle in public life. As I mentioned before, a man who does not wish to be arrested by a female officer is denying this right. Religion is of no consequence in a public space. The police officer, whether male or female, has the same responsibilities, the same obligations and the same rights under the law. The same principle is true for elections. In addition, I repeat, this has never been an issue for the Muslim community. We had testimony in this regard from several witnesses, including members of the Muslim Canadian Congress.

In my opinion, the answer to the member's remark and question is very clear. Here we see the legacy of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, a view of society that is outdated in several respects. In fact, citizenship issues have been clarified over the years. In this regard, Bill C-6, although incomplete, uses a much more modern approach to the integration of newcomers than that of multiculturalism, which has led to problems not only in Canada and Quebec, but also in Great Britain.

It may be time to wake up and realize not only that public spaces must respect rights and values in a manner that is equitable for all individuals but also that public spaces are secular spaces.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to emphasize that the point here is equality among voters and equality between men and women. There was only one incident: four women voted with their faces veiled, which they justified using the Chief Electoral Officer's directives. It is clear that this was an isolated incident. We should be grateful for the voters' sense of responsibility and wisdom in the three ridings that held byelections. If not for that, this issue could have been blown way out of proportion.

This is not about specific issues; it is a matter of principle. If we offered a group of voters the opportunity to vote with their faces covered—except for medical reasons, obviously, as set out in Bill C-6—we would be violating the principle of gender equality. Moreover, if we are talking about a specific religion, the Muslim community never asked for this.

I would like to quote part of an interview with Mrs. Ibnouzahir on Radio-Canada:

These women have been voting for years. They have never asked for special treatment, even though they know they have the right to do so under current legislation. They themselves took the initiative to show their faces, just as they do at customs or at the passport office, because they believed it made sense for security reasons.

They do not think it is unreasonable to show their faces when they vote. Why create an exception that goes against the values of Quebec society and, I think, Canadian society, to act on a request that was never articulated by any group in Quebec or Canada?

The Bloc Québécois wants to engage in a real debate between a vision of society known as multiculturalism, which seeks to bring all cultures and ethnicities into society, and Quebec's intercultural approach, which seeks to integrate all members of a society into a common culture.

I think that it is essentially the Trudeau legacy that is making the federal Liberals go back on the approach developed by their leader when these incidents happened. If I remember correctly, I think that the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada felt that common sense and the need to respect the right to equality between female and male electors dictated that it was necessary to vote with the face uncovered. Now, it seems as though some comments were made within the caucus or the core electorate of the Liberals that led the party to change its approach, reverting to the approach of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Society is made up of individuals and groups that join together rather than stand apart. So we will not wait for the incidents to happen. We are happy there have not been more.

A parliamentarian is responsible for addressing concerns as they arise, and not waiting for there to be a problem. It was the Chief Electoral Officer who asked parliamentarians to fix and clarify the situation. This is why we want to go further than Bill C-6 to ensure that the Chief Electoral Officer has all the necessary parameters to enforce the law as it should be, and as the parliamentarians in this House thought it would be. I think that the Liberals should start to seriously reflect on this. Perhaps this explains their problems in Quebec. They are completely disconnected from the way Quebeckers think.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to take part in this debate on voting with the face uncovered. The fact that this issue was brought up during the three byelections in Quebec is due in large part to the initiative of the Bloc Québécois. Decisions were then made by the Chief Electoral Officer of Quebec, during the Quebec election last March.

There was a great uproar in Quebec when the Chief Electoral Officer of Elections Canada, Mr. Mayrand, announced that he did not plan on using his power to address a loophole in the Canada Elections Act with respect to voting with the face covered. But the Chief Electoral Officer of Quebec used the power set out in section 19—if I am not mistaken—to fix a situation that went unnoticed by parliamentarians.

The people of Quebec were therefore especially upset by Mr. Mayrand's attitude and, throughout Quebec, people wanted him to reconsider his decision and take the necessary measures to ensure that voters vote with their faces uncovered. He would not do so, however, claiming that it was up to parliamentarians to correct the situation. His was a very weak argument, since the precedent had already been set, as I mentioned. Indeed, to ensure that the general election in Quebec ran smoothly, the Chief Electoral Officer of Quebec had decided to use his power to correct the situation, since parliamentarians had failed to do so.

As soon as the Chief Electoral Officer, Mr. Mayrand, revealed that he had no intention of making a decision, the Bloc Québécois, through my hon. colleague from Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, sent him a letter, calling on him to correct the situation and to ensure that, when voting, all voters confirm their identity by uncovering their entire face.

Furthermore, in the hours that followed, if memory serves, all the parties of this House made the same appeal to the Chief Electoral Officer of Elections Canada. The Prime Minister then intervened, saying that common sense dictated that voters must prove their identity when voting, which is also our position. Identification means more than just presenting documents or ID cards; it also means being able to guarantee that that individual is the same person as the one on the photo ID cards, and for that to be possible, the person's face must be fully visible.

As I recall, the Prime Minister wasted no time stating his position on the matter, and the leader of the Liberal Party took the same position. That is why it surprised me that yesterday, some of our Liberal colleagues did not seem to think there was a problem. It is strange that just after the byelection, they thought there was a problem and that now, for reasons I do not quite understand, they are flip-flopping on the position the Liberal Party leader took at the time.

I also remember that the NDP leader agreed with them initially, and that a few hours later, he started to adjust his stance on the issue. Unfortunately, I have not yet heard the NDP's opinion in this debate.

That being said, I do remember that all four party leaders spoke out in favour of voters showing their faces. At the time, it just so happened that I was giving a press conference to announce the Bloc Québécois' activities leading up to its convention in October 2008. Right then and there, as soon as Mr. Mayrand, the Chief Electoral Officer, stated that he had decided not to intervene, we condemned the situation.

Within hours, the Bloc Québécois whip announced that he would introduce a bill on the subject. That is exactly what he did. We introduced a bill requiring voters to show their faces when voting, a bill that respects gender equality.

When he tabled the bill, the member for Beauport—Limoilou requested the unanimous consent of the House to fast-track it, to move it through all stages quickly, but that did not happen. The Conservative Party, for strictly partisan reasons, refused to give its consent so that it could table the bill now before us.

Obviously, we cannot oppose the bill in principle, because we prompted this decision by the government. We could have moved much faster if there had been unanimous consent with regard to the bill introduced by my colleague, but that was not the case. Now, we have this bill before us.

As I mentioned, we support the bill in principle. However, the government has not tackled the root of the problem with its bill. Yes, voters will have to uncover their faces in order to be identified and be able to vote. But it is up to the Chief Electoral Officer to decide how this obligation is to be met, even though the Muslim community never made any specific request about this. This is where the real problem lies. The bill is responding to a request that was never made by a specific community that has been identified as the community to which the Chief Electoral Officer's decision was meant to respond.

The problem with the bill that is before us is that it is still up to the Chief Electoral Officer to determine how voters are to meet the requirement to identify themselves. We would not want Muslim women to ask to uncover their faces only in front of other women, because gender equality with regard to election officials would not be respected. In our opinion, religious considerations have no place in public spaces. We are not saying that religions are marginal or unimportant, but government employees have a responsibility to enforce the law fairly and equitably for everyone. In our opinion, there is no basis for this. I repeat that there has never been a request, on religious grounds, that Muslim women, for example—I am using this example because it has been reported most often in the media—be able to ask election officials to be allowed to uncover their faces only in front of another woman.

In our view, this is exactly the same as if a police officer wanted to arrest a man and the man invoked his religion and said that he could not get into a car with a female police officer. It is the same kind of thing. And that is the direction in which we will be going.

In committee, we will be proposing that a number of provisions in the act be tightened to ensure that such cases do not arise and that it will not once again be the responsibility of the Chief Electoral Officer to decide the procedures relating to the obligation for people to identify themselves when they vote. We have been sent a signal: it is up to parliamentarians to provide a complete response to the problem raised in the three byelections in Quebec.

We therefore support the bill in principle, but in terms of the manner in which it will be applied, we will want to be sure that religious considerations will not conflict with the fundamental principle, the obligation that electors have to identify themselves properly when they vote. We will therefore also be wanting to raise the question of postal ballots.

We will quite properly be raising the fact that while an elector has to identify himself or herself by showing his or her face in an election, there will be no such obligation for postal ballots. We will therefore want to amend the Elections Act accordingly in this regard. We will see whether this is acceptable during debate, but logically, it seems to me that we will have to move in that direction.

For example, it is mandatory to uncover one’s face and have one’s face uncovered when passport photographs are taken. In the area of airport security, the authorities are entitled to ensure that people are properly identified, by way of the passports or ID cards that are requested. Logically, for a right as important in a democracy as the right to vote, out of fairness to all electors, we have to ensure that the same methods are applied, including that everyone have an obligation, for the process of identification, to vote with his or her face uncovered.

That is the position that the Bloc Québécois will be taking. Once again, I would repeat, on the substantive issues, we support the bill. In our view, it is crucial that we ensure that all electors are equal before the law. As I said earlier, it is those principles that we will be arguing for in committee.

To conclude, I reiterate that the Bloc Québécois supports the bill in principle. All electors must be equal before the law. The Bloc Québécois and the other political parties believe that the Elections Act, as amended in 2007, was sufficiently clear. However, because the Chief Electoral Officer has refused to use his exceptional power to require that everyone who votes do so with their face uncovered, the Bloc Québécois believes that it is necessary to amend the act as quickly as possible.

As well, the Bloc Québécois notes that the bill presented by the government is not a complete response in terms of the principles of the equality of all persons before the law. As I said, the bill in fact opens the door to violations of the principle of the equality of men and women.

The first five clauses of Bill C-6 were introduced in order to allow deputy returning officers and poll clerks to delegate their power to another individual. This is what I was talking about earlier, and felt was the weak point in this bill. Using that mechanism, a male deputy returning officer could accommodate a female elector by designating a women before whom the elector could uncover her face to confirm her identity. In our view, that violates the principle of equality between men and women and of equality among all electors.

The Bloc Québécois will support Bill C-6 at second reading but will require that the first five amendments be changed, as I stated, to ensure that everyone has the same obligations with respect to the law.

I mentioned that the Bloc Québécois acted quickly in this matter. We wish to closely monitor this issue particularly since we are aware that it is at the heart of a debate that is extremely important to Quebec—the place of religion in public space.

That is not all. As I mentioned, we believe that by virtue of the principles of equity and equality, and out of respect for the values of Quebeckers, which are shared by Canadians, Bill C-6 must be amended to ensure that it fulfills its purpose. The government wanted to address the issue raised by the Chief Electoral Officer; however, its solution is inadequate and is not in keeping with the expectations of the Bloc Québécois and of Quebec society as a whole.

In the hours following the decision by the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, the parties in the National Assembly were united. Premier Jean Charest, the leader of the ADQ, Mario Dumont, and the new leader of the Parti Québécois believed that common sense dictated that individuals should vote with their face uncovered to ensure proper identification and also, as I mentioned, for security reasons, as is the norm. Therefore I find it difficult to see how, in the case of such an important right as the right to vote, these rights would be violated.

As I was saying, the Bloc Québécois will support Bill C-6 at second reading.

The House resumed from November 14 consideration of the motion that Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (visual identification of voters), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I should ask a rhetorical question here, but the first question is, where is the bill coming from? That is important to establish in order to help us answer some of the questions that will come up as we look into this bill.

The bill is not coming from Elections Canada. I have had the pleasure of a briefing from officials at Elections Canada, at my request, and it is quite clear that this bill emanates from the body politic, the government, and not from Elections Canada. That, I believe, is significant in the sense that the government therefore must answer the question that has already been put by my colleague as to whether or not this meets the charter test, whether the government has sought and obtained assurances that the proposed legislation in Bill C-6 does indeed meet the test of the charter. I believe that we might be surprised with that down the road, should Parliament decide to go much further with this legislation, because I am not convinced that it does meet the charter test.

I was also hoping to garner enough support in the House from members where there is goodwill to try to refer this bill to committee before second reading and therefore give ourselves more latitude in looking at the situation.

The representative of the Bloc Québécois who spoke said that his party would certainly consider that favourably. The member for Ottawa Centre indicated he thought the idea had merit and he would seek some direction from his own caucus.

I was hoping that if indeed the three opposition parties are in agreement here, the government would take that into consideration and would allow this bill to proceed to committee before second reading and therefore give our members who are representing each party there more latitude in dealing with a very difficult, complex and delicate situation.

I want to review how it is that Canadians can vote. There are different ways.

First, of course, they can show up at a polling station, and while at the polling station there are three different ways that Canadians can signify who they are and obtain a ballot.

The first way, as we mentioned, is by providing some sort of photo ID issued by government, one of which is a driver's licence. Another could be a passport. Another could be, in some jurisdictions, a health card. However, let it be known that 20% of Canadians do not have a driver's licence and do not necessarily have photo ID with them. Therefore, in its wisdom, Parliament, when it enacted this act in the past, recognized we had to have some flexibility for other ways of self-identification, because facial identification is not accessible to everyone.

The second way that any Canadian who is on the list of electors can use to obtain a ballot and vote is by providing non-photo ID that recognizes who they are and where they live. There is, I believe, a list of 50 or so such possibilities that they can use to identify themselves, not visually, not facially, not with a photo ID, but identify who they are and obtain a ballot.

The third way is go to the polling station, swear a note and be vouched for by another registered elector. All the person needs to provide is his or her name, address and signature. Again the person does not need to provide any photo ID.

There is a fourth way people can vote, which is really broken down into two. Both are called special ballots.

One of those two other ways is a mail-in ballot. At the start of or during a campaign, electors can ask that their ballots be sent to them and they can mail them in. It is usually people from overseas who will do that, but I have known citizens in the riding of Ottawa--Vanier who have exercised their right to vote by mail-in ballot. In those circumstances, they do not need to provide photo ID as well.

The other way is to obtain a special ballot from the returning officer of the riding. People do not even have to show up in person. Someone else can go to the returning officer's office up to six days before the actual polling day, obtain a ballot and go back to the person for whom they are doing that. The person, however, must sign and put the ballot in the sealed envelope and then return it by a specified time.

Essentially, we have created an environment where Canadians have five ways of voting and that is done to ensure Canadians can vote. Of those five ways, only one requires facial identification. The other four do not. That is how it is now and that is how it would remain should Bill C-6 be adopted. It is important that we take that into consideration.

Then we get into what Bill C-6 really does and we heard what it does tonight. It basically forces one very small, narrow category of Canadian citizens to unveil themselves should they be veiled for religious reasons.

Here is where I have a real problem. We have a situation where a Muslim woman, who has decided for religious reasons to wear a veil, goes into a polling station on election day, is forced to remove her veil and yet is not forced to facially identify. She can present two pieces of identification that recognize her name and her address or swear an oath and will not need to present photo ID.

What are we doing here? When my colleague from Ottawa Centre says that we have a solution looking for a problem, I would perhaps add a word to that. It is perhaps a non-solution looking for a problem because we are not changing anything here. However, we are going to force Muslim women to unveil themselves without having them photo identified. What is the point? That is a question that deserves an answer.

I do not have a problem with demanding that Muslim women identify visually. We do so as we do for every Canadian. If we want a passport we must have our picture taken and it must be in our passport. I do not have a problem with that and I do not think Canadians have a problem with that.

If we want a driver's licence, I believe in all jurisdictions in this country, we must have a photo. I know in Ontario we must have a photo if we want a driver's licence, and an unveiled photo if one happens to be a Muslim woman. I do not have a problem with that.

If we want to board a plane in this country we must provide photo ID, unveiled, and we must prove who we are as well. I do not have difficulty with that and I do not think anyone has. It is the same thing for the citizenship card. People must have a photo on it and Muslim women must be unveiled. I do not think anyone has difficulty with that because it is a universal application.

We have a situation here where we have said to all Canadians that they have five different ways of voting but for Muslim women we will be adding a special condition: they must remove their veil. At the same time, we are telling them that they do not need to provide facial proof of who they are. What is the point? That brings us to the questions of charter compliance. We heard comments about that earlier today.

We have had discussions concerning individual rights versus collective rights, and concerning freedom of religion and religious rights in relation to the fundamental right to vote. That is certainly the kind of debate that should take place in a House of Commons or Parliament. I am very interested in this question, and so are most of my hon. colleagues.

However, if the government were to ask me to express my opinion beforehand, without even knowing whether the bill before us meets the requirements of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, if the government were to ask me to state my position before I even had some answers to some of these questions, in my opinion, the government is going too far, too fast.

This bill involves potential fundamental conflicts between freedom of religion and the right to vote. This must be reconciled and it is up to Parliament to do so. Perhaps we will not be able to do so in this House. Furthermore, I find it rather ironic that, earlier, my hon. colleague from Ottawa Centre, who advocates abolishing the Senate, referred to that very chamber, in order to correct what he saw as a flaw in another bill, that is, Bill C-31, regarding the Canada Elections Act. We could very easily find ourselves in the same situation again.

I find it even more ironic that his party advocates abolishing the house that could in fact help us resolve this matter, if the government does not seem inclined to act appropriately, transparently and respectfully.

I want to use a very personal event. I was not sure I should but I will. I am thinking that what we are confronted with is very similar to an event, which the House may recall, that I was confronted with. In Ottawa at one point we had the merger of hospitals. The board, in its wisdom, hired someone who it believed to be the most competent person to help it navigate through the merger of a number of hospitals.

The board hired a gentleman who had essentially shepherded hospitals in the Montreal area in the same kind of environment, which is very difficult. People are suffering through a great deal of uncertainty. There are all kinds of questions. There may be people who fear for their jobs. Therefore, it is a tense environment to start with.

This gentleman happened to be David Levine who had been in the past a Parti Québécois candidate in the riding of D'Arcy McGee. He garnered, I gather, a very low number of votes, but that is neither here nor there.

However, we were confronted with a situation where a gentleman who had been hired was being threatened of being fired for political beliefs although he had accepted squarely to leave whatever political beliefs he held at the door. They were not germane to the job he was hired to do. It was a very heated debate in our community, so much so that the board thought it should hold a special meeting and it did. It chose the biggest hall it had at the hospital and still people spilled over to the street.

I chose to go and speak. Some of my friends told me that I was nuts and that I would be confronted. It was a bit mobbish but I felt it was important that the principle in this country that we do not hire and fire people based on their political beliefs if they leave those beliefs at the door. If we are hiring people for their competence and for their capacity, that is what they should be judged on, not because they may have run for a political party that we do not agree with.

I certainly have never shared the views of the Parti Québécois in terms of its basic tenet or the Bloc for that matter, but we cannot fire people. That was the slipperiest slope we could get on.

I have the feeling that the bill that is before us has such elements because of a rather volatile reaction to Mr. Myrand's decision to apply the law as he chose to. In the rush to condemn or criticize, perhaps some people have forgotten but what is at play here is the fundamental right of freedom of religion and the fundamental right of freedom to vote and people should be treated the same.

I know people tell me that all they are asking for is that all people who come to vote unveil themselves if they happen to wear a veil.

That is not quite true. One can vote by correspondence, vote by mail where one does not ever have to identify oneself visually. It is not quite true because one can vote by special ballot where someone else gets the ballot for the person and brings it back to the returning officer's office, so one ever needs to visually identity.

It is not quite true because right now someone else could show up and not have to prove who they are with visual identification, even the Muslim women whose veils we have forced them to remove because there are two other provisions that allow people to vote in this country without facial identification.

Do we want to go to that? Perhaps the country needs to look at that. I, too, have observed elections. I was in the Congo.

Last summer, I was in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where I noticed that something that contributed to the legitimate success of the electoral process was the voter's photo ID card. Everyone had one, so it was easy. Voters also had to dip their thumb in indelible ink. There were mechanisms to make sure the vote was legitimate, that people voted only once and that the person who was voting was the person on the voter's list. Do we want to move toward that sort of system? Perhaps. In my opinion, there is some merit to it.

However, we have to recognize that today, in Canada, we do not have a universal photo ID card. Moreover, 20% of Canadians do not have a driver's licence, and an even larger percentage do not have a passport.

Two jurisdictions have a photo on their health cards. The process is still under way in Ontario, but in some provinces, people do not have their photo on their health card. In addition, they do not have their address on their citizenship card or their photo on their social insurance card. Canadians therefore have no photo ID card they can use to exercise their right to vote. That is why voters are not required to visually identify themselves by showing a photo of their face.

Why require people to uncover their face when they are not required to identify themselves in this way? It is strikingly incongruous. We are entitled to ask what is behind this bill.

What motivates a government—because the bill comes from the government and not Elections Canada—to target a group and tell the members of that group that the government no longer believes in their right to religious freedom and is requiring women to uncover their faces?

The government can impose that requirement. I comply with that requirement for passports, for boarding planes and the like. However, there is an inconsistency. When we take a plane, we have to prove our identity. If we do not, we do not board. If we want a passport, we have to identify ourselves with our face uncovered or we do not get a passport. As far as voting is concerned, we are forcing these women to show their faces, but visual identification is not required. This is does not make sense. This is totally illogical. We are not being consistent.

I hope we will take a serious look at this bill because it was thrust into the heat of a possibly non-existent crisis. As the hon. member for Ottawa Centre said, it is a solution looking for a problem; in my opinion, it is a non-solution looking for a non-problem.

As legislators of a country like Canada, which espouses human rights and has a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, we have to be consistent and respect our social foundations, which are the envy of the entire world.

If we are inconsistent we will destroy those foundations and those rights. We must be very, very careful because the bill before us is inconsistent with those rights, it is inconsistent with the purpose of the Canada Elections Act. There is a lot to think about.

I may have used up all my time, but it was important to raise these arguments and questions. I know that I am not the only one who has these questions. We have seen these questions raised in the media. Good for them. We have seen that concerns have been raised within the targeted group. I think we need to pay attention to those concerns.

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

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to speak about this bill, especially since I am going to change the presentation I had drafted in my head and answer a question my colleague from Ottawa—Vanier asked the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

The suggestion made by my colleague from Ottawa—Vanier to refer the bill to committee before second reading is excellent. In light of what has been said, I can say that that could improve this bill. As I said earlier to the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, this bill, like any bill, can be improved. I also want to tell my colleague from Ottawa—Vanier that the relevant committee—because both members referred to the relevant committee—is the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, of which I am vice-chair.

That said, I would like to repeat that the Bloc Québécois will support the bill in principle, but that some parts will have to be changed. It is interesting to note that the bill provides for some exceptions. The issue had come up before, and this is an interesting point: the bill will allow people to keep their faces covered for medical reasons. These people could exercise their right to vote.

When I was a teenager, one of my friends had an operation. Beauty is important at that age. In fact, it is chief among our concerns. My friend had plastic surgery to pin back his ears, and his head was literally swathed in bandages. You could see only a few centimetres of skin on either side of his eyes. This would be ample reason for allowing this person to vote on presenting a medical certificate, of course. It goes without saying. However, we need to ask ourselves how often this situation arises in a general election or byelection.

In addition, Bill C-6 adds clauses that allow returning officers to appoint additional people at the polls and to delegate some of the responsibilities at the polls. In this way, the members of the election staff would have some flexibility to determine the circumstances under which a person would have to show his or her face. For example, a Muslim woman who so requested could uncover her face only in front of another woman.

We do not want to announce any amendments because we want to hear from the various stakeholders first. We will recall the controversy in late summer last year surrounding the decision by Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand to allow the possibility for veiled electors to vote. The Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs heard testimony from Muslim women's groups from Quebec, such as Présence musulmane Montréal, but mostly from Ontario. Five or six of these groups were represented at the roundtable with us, at the committee. These women told us that they never asked to vote with their faces veiled. That is something they never requested. Like other women in Canada, these Muslim women are seeking gender equality, and rightly so.

The government bill, however, seeks to leave a degree of power or flexibility with the Chief Electoral Officer. Mr. Mayrand had such flexibility, and we have seen what he did with it. We do not want to leave such flexibility with him. The Bloc Québécois wants clear legislation requiring everyone to remove their veil upon arriving at the polling station. Now, he is given the power to make accommodations.

The Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities has answered my question. I could have put the following question to him. How will this work in a polling division with three stations where the entire electoral staff is male?

How is this going to work? Will we stop the process if a woman shows up at the polling station and wants to vote—which is her legitimate right—but is veiled?

We have to find a way for her to unveil her face. We left that responsibility to the Chief Electoral Officer. How is it going to work? Will this be done in a polling booth, or in another location?

Let us take the example that I gave regarding polling divisions with two or three polling stations, as we find in rural communities. There may not be many in downtown Toronto, but in rural areas, in small communities of 230 people, such as Baie-Sainte-Catherine, in my riding, at the mouth of the Saguenay River, there are not going to be four polling divisions. If in this polling division that has only one polling station there are only men on duty, will we stop the voting process and swear in a special female returning officer? This is not feasible.

The Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs will hear witnesses who will reiterate the fact that Muslim women never requested that. I remind the House that Muslims account for 92% or 93% of the population in Morocco. This means there is a high probability that some women are veiled. It may not be all women, but again it is estimated that Muslims account for 92% or 93% of Morocco's population. These groups of Muslim women told us that this was never a problem.

In Morocco, when an election is held, there are two ballots. If my memory serves me right, elections were held on August 25 and on September 6. Elections were held at the end of August and in September, and there were no problems. Women uncovered their faces to vote.

By giving back this flexibility to the Chief Electoral Officer, the bill puts us back in almost the same dilemma. In any case, Mr. Mayrand will have the opportunity to come and tell us about it.

Again, the Bloc Québécois supports the bill in principle, because we feel that all voters, whether men or women, must be equal before the law.

In 2007, the House of Commons amended the Elections Act to enhance the requirements for proving the identity of voters. I do not intend to go over this at length, but there was indeed room for improvement. Before, two or three weeks in advance of voting day, the Chief Electoral Officer would send out a small card indicating the polling station and the polling division. This was sent out to every home.

As candidates in an election, there is a good chance we will see the electors at their home because we go door to door. I once went door to door in buildings with 64 dwellings. At the entrance, we could see the mail room with various store fliers and piles of elector cards. We saw 30 or 40 cards scattered on the floor among the flyers. A dishonest person could have gathered those cards and handed them out. They could have been used as identification.

I want to acknowledge the good work all parliamentarians have done to correct this situation. We have improved the identification process. I was a member of the committee at the time. If my memory serves me correctly, on February 23, 2007, we examined the issue of elector identification. I must admit that at the time, we did not discuss the issue of uncovering one's face to vote.

I also admit that the situation arose in Quebec during the March 26, 2007, general election. In fact, the chief electoral officer of Quebec, Marcel Blanchet, used his authority to rule that everyone presenting themselves at a polling station must vote with their faces uncovered. Period. The chief electoral officer, Mr. Blanchet, reiterated this fact during the byelections held in the Quebec riding of Charlevoix, in my riding, where the leader of the Parti Québécois, Ms. Marois, was elected. In addition, we learned last week that the National Assembly tabled a bill that will be studied by a parliamentary committee.

The Bloc Québécois, as well as the other political parties, and in particular, the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities and some members, pointed out in their interventions that the principle of the bill was consensual. Yes, that is correct. However, that does not mean that if we are in favour of the principle of the bill that we are in favour of all the provisions contained therein. That does not mean that all the provisions of the bill are not good.

I mentioned the example of someone who could vote with their face covered for medical reasons. However, some aspects of the bill are problematic.

In anticipation of the three byelections held last September 17 in Quebec, the Chief Electoral Officer, Mr. Mayrand, could have used his discretionary power and ruled that everyone had to vote with their face uncovered. The elections act gives him this authority. Contrary to what he told us in committee—and I challenged him on this—he seemed to say that it was too complex and too broad an issue to use his discretionary power.

I reminded him that, in the January 2006 election, the Chief Electoral Officer had used his discretionary authority on more than 33 occasions. He used it to amend the law to facilitate the voting. Therefore, Mr. Mayrand could have done it. However, he decided not to and at that point, on behalf of the Bloc Québécois, I announced that we would introduce a bill when Parliament resumed.

I do not want to get into a discussion of the type “my dad is stronger than yours” or “whose idea was it?” However, one thing is certain—before the introduction of Bill C-6, which we are discussing, after Parliament resumed, the Bloc Québécois had kept its promise. I proudly introduced, on behalf of my party, Bill C-465, to clarify the situation.

I agree that my bill left out the medical issue, but like all bills, it could have been improved. That being said, the bill introduced by the Bloc was clear: all individuals must show their faces to vote.

On behalf of my party, I even requested unanimous consent for this bill to be passed at all stages and referred to the Senate. The reality of a minority government is that an election can happen at the drop of a hat. This situation must be clarified, especially considering that Mr. Mayrand has refused to use the discretionary power available to him by law. Let us hope that there will not be an election next week, because we will find ourselves in exactly the same situation.

Unfortunately, for partisan reasons, the Conservative government refused to speed things up for the bill. The Conservatives introduced their own bill. As I said, I do not want to talk about whose idea it was in the first place. That is not the issue, but the truth is that before this bill was introduced, the government could have fast-tracked the Bloc Québécois' bill. However, the government chose to exhibit partisanship and pettiness by rejecting the Bloc's bill.

As I said, this bill would open the door to a breach of gender equality. The first five clauses of the bill were included to enable returning officers and poll clerks to delegate their authority to another individual. That means that there would be another person authorized to perform the duties normally required of returning officers and poll clerks as custodians of the ballot box and designated officials responsible for verifying the identity of voters.

Even the Secretary of State responsible for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity confirmed that these measures were included to accommodate certain cultural groups. On October 30, 2007, Le Devoir published an article in which the secretary of state said, “I think that the bill is well written... It strikes a balance between Parliament's desire to verify the identity of individuals and the need to remain flexible to accommodate cultural needs.”

That is not what Muslims, particularly Muslim women, are asking for. They want to be treated equally. They do not want to be treated differently from other voters. That is what the government is failing to understand.

When he was invited to explain the provisions of the bill, the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities told us that he wanted to leave some things to the discretion of the Chief Electoral Officer. We are right back to square one, the original reason this bill is before us. The Chief Electoral Officer is misusing his discretion, and refuses to take responsibility and issue an order.

The Bloc Québécois said that with the agreement of all the parties, we would propose a clear bill. However, the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities wants to allow more room for discretion. So the government is sending the problem back to the Chief Electoral Officer.

I would like to remind the House that in a La Presse article, dated October 30, 2007, the Chief Electoral Officer said that he did not intend to take sides in societal debates. What does it mean to take sides in societal debates?

In conclusion, I would like to say that this is completely unacceptable. All civil servants working in elections, whether they are deputy returning officers or poll clerks, deserve the same respect, regardless of their sex. Election workers, whether they are male or female, must be able to carry out the same tasks without being discriminated against based on their sex.

To get around the requirement I mentioned earlier, at a polling station where there are only men, the Chief Electoral Officer could require that there be one woman at each table in each polling division, to allow female voters to uncover their face only in front of a woman. This would encourage discrimination, setting us back years, and it is not our intention to encourage such behaviour.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise for this side of the House and discuss Bill C-6.

I was quite taken aback by the previous speaker's comment about a punitive voter arriving at the polls with a pumpkin on his head. I had not read that and I wondered if the hon. minister had made a complaint to Elections Canada about that or whether, in fact, any complaints were made to Elections Canada. I can only assume that the comment about the pumpkin on the head of the punitive voter was intended to make light of a very grave situation. It shocks me that the government and ministers of the government, people in the first rows, not even people in the back rows on the other side, would take such a very important issue so lightly.

I stand to be corrected if there actually was a voter who arrived at the polls with a pumpkin on his head, and I see that as a complaint from the hon. minister who may have witnessed it, then I will eat all of the words I just said, including the pumpkin.

Bill C-6 attempts to solve a problem that I submit does not exist. It is rather like that pumpkin on the head, which I presume is a problem that does not exist. What we have is a situation where a major political response is taking hold within the government benches.

The primary question that I hope in my brief remarks might be addressed is: Does Canada really have a problem identifying voters? I will get into the background about Bill C-31, which was studied indepth by a very capable committee of all parties and which, presumably, dealt with these issues and attempted to solve them.

The other issue that I want to keep in mind while discussing this issue is that voters who cast their ballots by mail do not, obviously, show their faces. Is there a different standard for someone who is an absentee ballot holder compared to someone who makes the effort to go to the polls to vote? This is a very important question when we discuss the overall scope of voter identification.

Bill C-31 was not perfect. It was the first stab at having people, who present themselves at the returning office, identify themselves in some manner, through some form of identification.

As we know from a sister bill, there are very serious problems being addressed with respect to addresses for rural voters. We have had information on our side that this may not only affect rural voters but that it affects many voters across Canada. That is a serious bill to address a serious problem.

This bill, on the other hand, does not seem to address an existing problem. The rural voters bill, which we will debate at another time in this place, addresses a real issue that has resulted from complaints from people who feel they will be disenfranchised and, upon examination, it seems pretty clear might very well be. The numbers are in the hundreds of thousands across the country and in some ridings it is particularly high, especially in rural ridings in western Canada. That seems to be a real problem.

In this case, we have a situation where no complaint was ever filed to Elections Canada about allegations that during recent byelections in the province of Quebec this was an issue.

I will get into much more substantive issues with respect to our Charter of Rights, which is enjoying its 25th anniversary. That is not spoken of very much by members on the government side. I wish I had a chance to ask the minister, although not the Minister of Justice responsible for charter compliance nor the Minister for Democratic Reform introducing the bill, whether Bill C-6 complies with the charter. All members of the House know that every bill that a responsible government, new or old, brings to the House must be certified as to pass charter compliance.

At first glance, members may think that a roads bill or a bridges bill might not have any charter implications, and they may well not, but when we are dealing with something as quintessential as one's right to vote, which the Canada Elections Act in general deals with, the first thing that should go off in any responsible government is whether it complies with the charter and whether we have an opinion to that effect.

I wish I had the chance to ask a minister whether an opinion was tabled. We do not need to see the opinion but we need assurance from the front benches or any bench in fact that the government has sought and received charter compliance with the bill.

Let us get back to the root of the complaint. From the time of Bill C-31 from the last session, there was a movement to improve the integrity of the voting system. That was the background and the intention of all the hearings on Bill C-31 and the subsequent amendments. What Bill C-31, as amended, did not do was require veiled women to remove their face coverings for voting.

The flap that occurred in practice was during the byelections in Quebec and it was over the strict interpretation by the chief electoral officer, Marc Mayrand, of the bill as amended. He said that the wording did not require veiled voters to reveal their faces at polling stations. Therefore, he said, which is the reason we are here I guess, that either we amend the act of Parliament or we should let him do his job.

The Conservative government is bent on attacking Elections Canada and it is doing so in the courts. It puts the Elections Canada official to an ultimatum of whether “you require an amendment or let me do my job”, the government does the amendment. There is no record of a complaint to Elections Canada about the issues arising or allegedly arising. The Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities was very clear in his remarks. He participated widely and energetically in the byelections in Quebec and apparently witnessed problems. However, I guess he did not have the follow-through courage to effect complaints through the official channels, which would be a complaint to Elections Canada. He did not do that. No one did that. There are no complaints arising from the incidents that were of such widespread and common occurrence according to the government so as to cause us to be sitting here as a priority debating Bill C-6.

I am not suggesting it directly but it may have been the work of the government to create at the time a political crisis to cover other issues involving election campaign financing that the government felt some heat about at the time.

The bill, as presented, is intended, as I understand it from the framers, to explicitly state what they thought Bill C-31 implicitly said.

Mr. Speaker, you are learned in the law and members of the House pass laws and should examine laws. Laws are meant to be interpreted for what they say and not to be guessed at about what they might say. What we have is a situation where the chief elector officer read the law very carefully and did not require people to show their faces. There were no complaints. The question remains: why are we here?

I think we are here because it is seen as politically efficacious for the government to support such a bill. It seems, however, that this bill is targeted at a very specific population. It seems that this bill is attempting to target a group of people who deserve, as much as anyone here, the protection of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It seems that this small group also needs the protection of human rights legislation, perhaps more than every member in this House.

Now, the anomaly, as I mentioned, is that a person who has been through a trauma and has his or her face bandaged, or a person, frankly, who wishes to have an absentee ballot, can vote without making visual, that is, facial, identification necessary. In fact, we do not even have to go that far. I submit that the effect of option two from Elections Canada's methods of voting puts into play the fact that one can show up at the ballot box or the place to vote and not show one's face.

That seems a little difficult for people to understand, but I will explain. Option one for voting is to provide one original piece of identification issued by a government or a government agency and containing the person's photo. It is one piece of identification. In the province of New Brunswick, that would be a driver's licence. The person shows up at the voting station, shows a picture ID driver's licence and is able to vote.

It is not written in the law. This is where we get into explicit and implicit. It is not written in the law, but it is the practice of Elections Canada, I assume--but it is not in the law--for officials to look at the photograph as submitted and compare it to the person who is before the officials. However, nothing is written in that respect. One presumes, then, that facial visual identification of the voter is required when a person submits the driver's licence with the photo on it.

However, option two is where I say a person does not necessarily have to be visually identified. In that situation, a person could show up with two original pieces of identification authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada. Both pieces must contain the person's name. One must also contain the person's residential address. There is a long list of what those cards might be, but let us say that they might be the hydro bill as the second piece and the first piece might be the person's social insurance card.

If a person submits those two pieces of information, which do not have the person's photo on them, I submit to members that no one is required under the second option to submit to visual identification. It does not matter what they look like or what colour their eyes are or whether they have eyelashes or not, or for that matter if they have a pumpkin on their head, they are not going to be examined against any standard because two pieces of identification do not have a photo.

The third option, which was sought as an improvement under Bill C-31, was for the potential voter to swear an oath and be vouched for by a registered elector who is on the list of electors. That seems to work very well.

However, we can see that the intention of the parties, the committees and the people who did all of this work on Bill C-31 does not seem to have been put into effect perfectly, specifically as we speak about rural addresses being at odds with the list and, I would submit, secondly, on how we find ourselves here discussing Bill C-6.

Bill C-31 received royal assent on June 22, 2007. It amended the Elections Act to require all voters to prove their identity and residence before voting, with no mention whatsoever of having to show one's face. It is not in the act. It seems to me that if we were to right things, if it is now a requirement that to vote, everyone, including members of this Parliament, would have to show his or her face to vote. and I have just indicated that by absentee ballots or by the submission of the two pieces of identification they do not have to. So why is it now that if I have two pieces of non-photo ID I can vote, but a person who wears a veil for religious reasons must show her face to vote?

Leading into the second arm of my argument, is that not then in violation of the basic right of being treated equally under the law? The charter of rights has a number of profound and entrenched articles respecting people's rights and one of them is to be treated equally under the law.

I submit that this is targeted legislation taking away that equality. That is why it is essential for us to know this, perhaps down the road at committee if this is where this bill ends up. That should be among the first round of questions for the Minister for Democratic Reform, or whoever he sends there that day, to satisfy the committee members as to whether in fact this bill is charter compliant.

What would be the political, social or societal basis for the government bringing forth such a bill? It might be because the government received news from certain community spokespersons that it is okay, that people who wear veils for religious reasons generally remove them for voting purposes anyway. That could be the spokesman on one day.

What we know is that there are people who say different things regarding the requirement for one small group in our community to do something different from what we--the majority, I might add, or just members of Parliament in general--do when we present ourselves to vote. There are political underpinnings for this bill. Frankly, everything that comes from this government is political. Everything is a knee-jerk reaction. Everything is targeted. Everything is intended to divide a country and a segment of a population. That is what the government does.

In that regard, this bill might be quite successful. The government should laud itself for promulgating yet another bill that divides, that targets groups and creates havoc, but what we should be concerned with here in this place is creating laws that are constitutional, legal and non-discriminatory.

The reason I say the government is politically and societally wrong is that it may have relied on the spokesman du jour when this was introduced and it may find that there are in fact other stakeholders who do not agree with its rationale. I might in fact quote items from the Montreal Gazette of September 10.

One comment is from Mr. Elmasry. The item states:

“We don't want to force anybody to change their religious inclination and beliefs”, he explained, pointing out that it is also important for women from religious minorities to vote. “At the same time, there is a certain level of integrity in the election process that we must maintain”.

Those are truisms. Those are things that we stand for.

Later in the Montreal Gazette article, there is a quote from Alia Hogben of the Canadian Council of Muslim Woman. If this is a targeted piece of legislation, and the target group are Muslim women, do we not take the high road in respecting those persons' rights? Do we not take the high road and stand up when it may not be politically expedient and say that this is bad, divisive, charter non-compliant and discriminatory legislation? Do we not take the high road in saying that?

The quote from Alia Hogben, which I will close with, is as follows:

For us, the sad thing is it's always focusing on Muslims and as far as I know it wasn't a request made by Muslims. It probably came up [from] Elections Canada--with good intentions, thinking they would try to accommodate people--but I don't think it's necessary.

Tempest, teapot: we can use the word we wish. We do not think this bill creates a solution, because there is no real problem.

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Minister of Transport]

moved that Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (visual identification of voters), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to lead off the debate on Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (visual identification of voters). Everywhere in the western world, governments are taking measures to improve the integrity of democratic processes by trying to prevent voter fraud. Canada is no exception.

After the tabling, in June 2006, of the 13th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, which was adopted by all parties, the government introduced Bill C-31, which followed through on several recommendations contained in that report. While a good number of changes were made thanks to that piece of legislation, the bill before us today deals with changes to the voter identification requirements.

Before Bill C-31 was passed, electors could simply go to a polling station with their voter card and vote. Today, for the first time, electors will have to prove their identity and residence before they can vote. They can do so in three different ways. First, they can present a valid identification card with their photo, name and address. Second, if an elector does not have photo identification they could present two other pieces of identification approved by the Chief Electoral Officer that verify their identity and residence. Third, if an elector does not have proof of identification, they could swear an oath and use a voucher.

After Bill C-31 received royal assent on June 22, 2007, the Chief Electoral Officer decided that these changes would be implemented in time for the byelection in Quebec on September 17, 2007. Albeit quick, this decision was not surprising. It was the Chief Electoral Officer's interpretation of the legislation that surprised the government. Even though the legislation clearly states that electors must prove their identity before they can vote, according to the Chief Electoral Officer, they can vote with their face covered.

Not only is it illogical for a person to be able to prove their identity if their face is covered, but this decision also makes no sense and has many people perplexed. The government was of the opinion that this interpretation of the legislation did not take into account the will and clear intentions of the Parliament of Canada and asked the Chief Electoral Officer to review his decision. The government was not alone in that view. The four political parties of the House of Commons disagreed with the Chief Electoral Officer's interpretation and, in September, unanimously passed a motion in the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs calling on him to review his decision.

Nonetheless, the Chief Electoral Officer has refused to respect the will and intentions of Parliament. On the day of the byelection on September 17, we saw the consequences of that decision. In several locations in Quebec, people deliberately covered their face for no reason. One person even voted with a pumpkin on his head. As a result, the public has called into question the credibility and integrity of the electoral process.

The government cannot stand by and let this happen. A democratic country must maintain public trust in the electoral system. In order to maintain this trust, to ensure that the government's will and intentions are respected and to prevent this from happening again, the government made a firm commitment to make the necessary legislative changes.

We reiterated this commitment in the Speech from the Throne in October 2007, when we stated “—the integrity of our federal voting system will be further strengthened through measures to confirm the visual identification of voters.”

I am pleased to say that we honoured this commitment on Friday, October 26, with the introduction of Bill C-6, which we are debating today.

The bill provides for the simple requirement that electors show their face before being allowed to vote. This legislation will strengthen the integrity of the electoral process: by improving voter identification by making it possible to compare voters' faces with the information on their identification card or on the voter's list; by helping to ensure that only people who are qualified electors, people 18 and older, vote; and by making it possible to identify anyone trying to commit an offence at the polling station, for example, someone who tries to vote more than once.

It is important to note that there is one exception in the bill: a person may vote with their face covered if there is a valid medical reason.

We realize that some customs require women to cover their face in public. We want to clearly state that this bill does not target them. It targets people who want to use those customs to commit electoral fraud.

While the government was compelled to take action to protect the integrity and the credibility of the voting process, it did so strictly and only because of the ruling made by the chief electoral officer.

If these women were dragged into this debate, it is because the chief electoral officer interpreted the act in a way that did not reflect the intent of our Parliament. Consequently, the government had to react.

However, it is important to point out that women who wear the veil never asked to be allowed to keep wearing it when they vote. In fact, these women readily show their face in numerous situations, when this is necessary. For example, they remove their veil when they get their picture taken for a driver's licence or a passport, or when they cross the border, and they never objected to having to show their face to vote.

This was confirmed during the committee's hearings on this issue, in September 2007, when a large number of people representing the Muslim community clearly said that women have no problem with showing their face if it is necessary.

The real question that we should ask ourselves is the following: why did the chief electoral officer make the decision that he made, and who did he consult before making that decision? Why did he drag these women into a debate that they did not want and that they had not requested?

Be that as it may, the government felt that it would be reasonable to allow these women to uncover their face in front of another woman.

While this decision ultimately belongs to Elections Canada, we gave that office the administrative flexibility to allow women to uncover their face before another woman.

Surprisingly, some people said that these measures jeopardize the equality between men and women under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That is totally absurd.

Does the fact that women at the border can only be searched by other women threaten the equality between men and women? Of course not, and our bill does not threaten it either.

Others have asked why we did not amend the special ballot process. Quite simply because this process is very different from the regular ballot process on election day.

The special ballot process requires some paperwork so as to create a paper trail.

Voters who vote by mail must register in advance. To obtain a special ballot, voters must provide proof of their identity and residence. They also need to fill out a special request.

Once registered, voters are removed from the voters list and are not allowed to vote at the polling station. With such a complex process, it takes considerable time to evaluate and confirm the integrity of the votes that have been cast. Advanced registration to obtain a special ballot has to be done before election day, not on election day, because of the close scrutiny required in these circumstances.

On election day, throughout the day, many people show up at the polling station asking to vote immediately, but the thorough process for giving out special ballots is not used that day.

That is why the rules regarding voter identification have been adopted in the first place, to prevent voter fraud in these circumstances.

Critics have argued that there was no evidence of voter fraud having occurred because of people having their face covered. Even if this were true, that is certainly no reason not to act. Following that logic, we would wait for our houses to be broken into before putting locks on our doors or wait for someone to drawn before posting deep water warnings. The government will not wait for evidence of voter fraud before taking steps to prevent it.

The government passed Bill C-31 to improve the integrity of the electoral process. Under the new act, electors are now required, and this is a first, to show identification before voting. However, because of a misinterpretation of the act by the Chief Electoral Officer, allowing people to vote with their face concealed, the integrity and credibility of the electoral process has been called into question. That is specifically contrary to the spirit and intent of the legislation.

Our government has therefore responded by introducing the bill on visual identification of voters. This bill requires electors to show their face at the polling station before voting, while providing for an exception for medical reasons and an accommodation for people who normally have their face covered in public.

I hope that all members will work with the government to ensure this bill is passed so that it can be enacted shortly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Madam Redmond, I heard, too, that you might have suggested that we bring witnesses and perhaps study—did you say this?—Bill C-6 and Bill C-16 at the same time because the witnesses are common to the two. No? I misunderstood.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

Madam Redman is absolutely correct to remind members that Bill C-16 is in front of us today.

We have Bill C-6, which received first reading October 26, 2007. That is the act to amend the Canada Elections Act regarding visual identification of voters. Bill C-16 is expanded voter opportunities, which is before us today, and our clerk is definitely writing down witness suggestions for the bill. I suspect this is the way the committee wants to proceed, with just a brief discussion about how we're going to go about studying Bill C-16.

I wasn't sure whose hand was up first over there. I'm going to go with Mr. Lukiwski, then Mr. Reid, please.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, because the official opposition was in disarray or whatever, it was unprepared to stand in the House and ask the Thursday question last week. As a result, I was unable to inform the House that this week's theme is “Effective Economic Leadership”.

I am proud to say that to date, we have been very successful.

Yesterday, the House approved the government's budgetary and economic plan to provide tax relief to Canadians by reducing the GST to 5% and cutting personal and business income taxes.

Tomorrow, we will continue to provide effective economic leadership by debating Bill C-7, which would amend the Aeronautics Act; Bill C-15, which would assist in developing natural resources, in Nova Scotia in particular; Bill C-4, which would amend the Pilotage Act; and C-14, which would amend the Canada Post Act.

If time permits, we will also continue with our plan to tackle crime and strengthen security by debating Bill C-3, which would improve the security certificate process.

Next week will be “Honouring our Veterans Week”, allowing members to be in their ridings during this important time.

Today, I would like to recognize the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound who worked hard to make it a reality.

When the House resumes, we will carry on with our very full legislative agenda for democratic reform.

Therefore, I am proud to inform the House that the theme for that week will be “Strengthening our Federation through Democratic Reform Week”.

On Wednesday, November 14, the government will discuss Bill C-6 concerning the visual identification of voters.

We will also be debating legislation that we put on notice last night to address the issue of verification of residence for rural voters.

We hope that the opposition parties will work with the government to pass these two bills quickly before a general election or byelections take place.

We will continue to work toward increasing voter turnout by debating our expanded voting opportunities bill in committee, which would increase the number of advance polling days.

We will also move forward with other parts of our agenda to modernize Canadian democracy.

By debating and passing these legislative initiatives, we will strengthen Canada's political institutions and enhance public confidence in the integrity and accountability of those institutions.

Finally, Tuesday, November 13, will be a supply day, and today we will resume debate on the opposition motion.

Canada Elections Act

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act (visual identification of voters).

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)