Bill C-23 (Historical)

Fair Elections Act

An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other Acts and to make consequential amendments to certain Acts

This enactment amends the Canada Elections Act (“the Act”) to require the Chief Electoral Officer to issue interpretation notes and guidelines on the application of that Act to registered parties, registered associations, nomination contestants, candidates and leadership contestants. It also requires the Chief Electoral Officer, on request, to issue a written opinion on the application of provisions of the Act to an activity or practice that a registered party, registered association, nomination contestant, candidate or leadership contestant proposes to engage in.
The enactment also modifies the Chief Electoral Officer’s power under section 17 of the Act so that the power may only be exercised to allow electors to exercise their right to vote or to allow votes to be counted. It also limits the Chief Electoral Officer’s power to transmit advertising messages to electors and requires the Chief Electoral Officer to ensure that any information so transmitted is accessible to electors with disabilities.
The enactment further amends the Act to permit the Chief Electoral Officer to seek approval from parliamentary committees to test an alternative voting process (but where such a pilot project is to test a form of electronic voting, the Chief Electoral Officer must first obtain the approval of the Senate and House of Commons). The enactment also eliminates the mandatory retirement of the Chief Electoral Officer at age 65 and replaces it with a 10-year non-renewable term. It provides for the establishment of an Advisory Committee of Political Parties to provide advice to the Chief Electoral Officer on matters relating to elections and political financing. The enactment also amends the Act to provide for the appointment of field liaison officers, based on merit, to provide support to returning officers and provide a link between returning officers and the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer. It also enables the Chief Electoral Officer to temporarily suspend a returning officer during an election period and provides for the appointment of additional election officers at polling stations. Finally, it empowers registered parties and registered associations, in addition to candidates, to provide names of individuals for election officer positions and changes the deadline for providing those names from the 17th day before polling day to the 24th day before polling day.
The enactment also adds to the Act Part 16.1, which deals with voter contact calling services. Among other things, that Part requires that calling service providers and other interested parties file registration notices with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, provide identifying information to the Commission and keep copies of scripts and recordings used to make calls. That Part also requires that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission establish and maintain a registry, to be known as the Voter Contact Registry, in which the documents it receives in relation to voter contact calling services are to be kept.
The enactment also replaces Part 18 of the Act with a new, comprehensive set of rules on political financing that corrects a number of deficiencies in the Act. Notably, the enactment
(a) increases the annual contribution limits for contributions to registered parties, registered associations, candidates and nomination and leadership contestants to $1,500 per year and by $25 per year after the first year;
(b) increases the amount that candidates and leadership contestants may contribute to their own campaigns to $5,000 and $25,000, respectively;
(c) permits registered parties and registered associations to make transfers to candidates before their nomination is confirmed by the returning officer;
(d) requires a registered party’s auditor to complete a compliance audit in relation to its election expenses return indicating that the party has complied with the political financing rules;
(e) requires registered parties, registered associations and candidates to disclose details of expenses for voter contact calling services in their returns;
(f) reforms the rules governing unpaid claims, making it an offence for claims to remain unpaid after three years and strengthening the reporting of unpaid claims;
(g) reforms the reporting requirements of leadership contestants;
(h) permits higher spending limits for registered parties and candidates if an election period is longer than the 37-day minimum;
(i) includes new rules on political loans; and
(j) defines “capital asset” for the purposes of reporting the distribution cost of advertising or promotional material transmitted to the public using a capital asset, so that the expense is reported as the corresponding rental value for the period in which it was used, and for the purpose of the disposal of the campaign surplus.
With respect to voter identification, the enactment amends the Act to require the same voter identification for voting at the office of the returning officer in an elector’s own riding as it requires for voting at ordinary polls. It also prohibits the use of the voter information card as proof of identity, eliminates the ability of an elector to prove their identity through vouching, allows an elector to swear a written oath of their residence provided that their residence is attested to on oath by another elector, and requires an elector whose name was crossed off the electors’ list in error to take a written oath before receiving a ballot.
The enactment also amends the Act to provide an extra day of advance polling on the eighth day before polling day, creating a block of four consecutive advance polling days between the tenth and seventh days before polling day. It requires a separate ballot box for each day of advance polling and details procedures for the opening and closing of ballot boxes during an advance poll. Finally, it gives returning officers the authority to recover ballot boxes on the Chief Electoral Officer’s direction if the integrity of the vote is at risk.
The enactment also amends the Act to, among other things, establish a process to communicate polling station locations to electors, candidates and political parties, to provide that only an elector’s year of birth is to be displayed on the lists of electors used at the polls, instead of the full date of birth, to permit candidates’ representatives to move to any polling station in the electoral district after being sworn in at any polling station in the district and to establish a procedure for judicial recounts.
The enactment further amends the Act to change how the Commissioner of Canada Elections is appointed. It establishes that the Commissioner is to be appointed by the Director of Public Prosecutions for a seven-year term, subject to removal for cause, that the Commissioner is to be housed within the Director’s office but is to conduct investigations independently from the Director, and that the Commissioner is to be a deputy head for the purposes of hiring staff for his or her office and for managing human resources.
The enactment also amends the Act to add the offence of impersonating or causing another person to impersonate a candidate, a candidate’s representative, a representative of a registered party or registered association, the Chief Electoral Officer, a member of the Chief Electoral Officer’s staff, an election officer or a person authorized to act on the Chief Electoral Officer’s or an election officer’s behalf. It also adds the offences of providing false information in the course of an investigation and obstructing a person conducting an investigation. In addition, it creates offences in relation to registration on the lists of electors, registration on polling day, registration at an advance polling station and obligations to keep scripts and recordings used in the provision of voter contact calling services.
The enactment further amends the Act to provide for increases in the amount of penalties. For the more serious offences, it raises the maximum fine from $2,000 to $20,000 on summary conviction and from $5,000 to $50,000 on conviction on indictment. For most strict liability offences, it raises the maximum fine from $1,000 to $2,000. For registered parties, it raises the maximum fine from $25,000 to $50,000 on summary conviction for strict liability political financing offences and from $25,000 to $100,000 on summary conviction for political financing offences that are committed intentionally. For third parties that are groups or corporations that fail to register as third parties, it raises the maximum fine to $50,000 for strict liability offences and to $100,000 for offences that are committed intentionally and for offences applying primarily to broadcasters, it raises the maximum fine from $25,000 to $50,000.
The enactment amends the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act to authorize the Chief Electoral Officer to provide administrative support to electoral boundary commissions. It amends the Telecommunications Act to create new offences relating to voter contact calling services and to allow the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to use the inspection and investigation regime in that Act to administer and enforce part of the voter contact calling services regime in the Canada Elections Act. It amends the Conflict of Interest Act to have that Act apply to the Chief Electoral Officer. It also amends the Director of Public Prosecutions Act to provide that the Director of Public Prosecutions reports on the activities of the Commissioner of Canada Elections.
Finally, the enactment includes transitional provisions that, among other things, provide for the transfer of staff and appropriations from the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to support the Commissioner of Canada Elections.

Fair Elections Act

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I draw the member's attention to the independent commissioner, who would have sharper teeth, a longer reach, and a freer hand.

The fair elections act would empower law enforcement with sharper teeth, a longer reach, and a freer hand. Sharper teeth would mean stiffer penalties for existing offences; a longer reach would mean empowering the commissioner with more than a dozen new offences to combat big money, rogue calls, and fraudulent voting; finally, a freer hand would mean the commissioner would have full independence, with control of his or her staff in investigations, and a fixed term of seven years so he or she could not be fired without cause.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I think a very pointed question is required here.

The member alluded earlier to the singling out of the Conservative Party of Canada by Elections Canada. My first question for her needs a simple answer, a yes or no. Are the Conservatives targeted by Elections Canada unfairly?

Second, the member is talking about trying to achieve neutrality for Elections Canada. I am not sure “neutral”, or perhaps even “neutered”, is the right word in this particular situation, because the Chief Electoral Officer was in the media this weekend talking about how this is a step back for democracy.

First, yes or no, are the Conservatives targeted unfairly? Second, why is the Chief Electoral Officer so wrong?

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is ironic that in the past the agents of Parliament have appealed for more oversight from all parliamentarians. However, who watches the watchdogs?

That was the question we asked after the 2011 election, particularly after the former privacy commissioner, George Radwanski, resigned in disgrace after management problems were investigated by the Auditor General. Security of tenure, meaning that an agent of Parliament cannot be removed without the approval of both the House of Commons and the Senate, while important to the independence of an agent of Parliament to do his or her job, must be thoroughly thought out. Substituting one abuse with the potential for a different kind of abuse is no solution.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Minister of State (Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario)]

Mr. Speaker, interestingly enough, one of my volunteers on my campaign of 2011 got a letter from Elections Canada threatening to put him in prison because he mistakenly opened our bank account two days early. We recently got a letter stating that someone had overcontributed to my campaign. As a result of contributing to a number of campaigns, a small error was made, and we need to keep elections fair, as the letter stated. Therefore, we had to find this individual and repay him $200. Interestingly enough, it was the same week Elections Canada decided to ignore the hundreds of thousands of dollars in leadership donations that we all deemed to be illegal.

Elections Canada lets the Liberals off, yet threatens to put my volunteers in prison. I wonder if the member can comment on that fairness.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it may be more appropriate for the Commissioner of Canada Elections to be appointed by the Minister for Democratic Reform or Parliament, rather than have the appointment left to the Director of Public Prosecutions, but I leave that consideration for the minister and this House.

When our Conservative government brought in the Federal Accountability Act, one of the steps we took was the elimination of the appointment of federal crown agents as partisan political appointees. A problem is that a number of Chrétien-era partisan political appointees may still be corrupting the system. Changes that we would implement through Bill C-23 are intended to prevent the abuses of the past that the minister speaks of.

Under the current legislation, the chief returning officer and the Commissioner of Canada Elections are under the same roof. Prosecutions happen in consultation with the Director of Public Prosecutions. Our amendments in Bill C-23 would make the Commissioner of Canada Elections independent of the Chief Electoral Officer and the Director of Public Prosecutions.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we cannot forget the context in which we are debating Bill C-23, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other Acts and to make consequential amendments to certain Acts, here in the House.

This bill comes after a long wait. It took the government two long years to introduce this bill, as though it cost the government a great deal to do so. This long wait was then followed by a suspicious haste to rush the bill through, to speed up the parliamentary process, as though the government had something to hide. It wants to rush through a 252-page bill that has to do with electoral democracy.

The current context also includes the fact that the Prime Minister has chosen a Minister of State for Democratic Reform, the minister sponsoring this bill, who just happens to be the member who has attacked Elections Canada, an honourable and essential institution, more than anyone else in the history of Canada. This is a member who has spent the past few years defending the indefensible every time the Conservative Party has been involved in shady schemes. This is a minister who, in just the last few days, has accused Elections Canada of bias, without any evidence whatsoever. This is a minister who falsely said that he had consulted the Chief Electoral Officer on this bill, forcing the Chief Electoral Officer to set the record straight.

This bill comes at a time when the ethics of this government and the Conservatives Party are being called into question by many troubling facts.

We remember the in-and-out scandal, when the Conservative Party, having finally admitted to election overspending and to submitting inflated election returns, had no choice but to pay the maximum fine under the Elections Act.

We remember the Peter Penashue scandal, when the former Conservative minister had to resign his seat due to wide-scale election overspending.

We know that Conservative MPs from Saint Boniface and Selkirk—Interlake both entered into a compliance agreement with Elections Canada.

We know that the MP for Peterborough was kicked out of the Conservative caucus and is facing charges under the Elections Act.

We remember the worst of these scandals, the fraudulent election robocalls scandal, where Federal Court Judge Richard Mosley noted that electoral fraud did occur during the 41st general election. Justice Mosley stated:

I am satisfied, however, that the most likely source of the information used to make the misleading calls was the CIMS database maintained and controlled by the [Conservative Party of Canada].

Let us look at that scandal for a moment. According to the Federal Court, the Conservative Party database was the most likely source of the fraudulent calls that were made to mislead voters and keep them from voting in the 2011 election.

What should an honest political party do under such circumstances? It should alert the police so that it can be determined who, in the party or otherwise, used the database for fraudulent purposes.

If the party does not do that, if the Conservatives do not do that, is it because someone in the party already knows the truth and does not want it to come to light?

The Conservative Party has stood in the way of the search for the truth in this sordid affair. Under the pretext that the judge had not determined with 100% certainty that the Conservative Party database had indeed been misused, the party declared itself innocent and refused to launch any kind of investigation. The party does not really seem to want to find out what happened.

What is worse, the Conservatives' election workers completely refused to speak with investigators about the mystery fraudulent telephone calls in Guelph. Too bad if the guilty parties, the fraudsters, are still at large. Too bad, or all the better, if the Conservative war room's real goal is to protect those who are guilty. The party clearly wanted to protect them or it would have acted differently.

That is why we are legitimately suspicious about the government and the Conservative Party, which is finally coming forward with a bill that set outs the rules that this government would like to see govern the next federal election in the fall of 2015.

If the government wants to dispel the suspicion surrounding its electoral honesty, why does the minister's bill ignore the main recommendation made by the Chief Electoral Officer, which received strong support from the Commissioner of Canada Elections, namely to facilitate investigations and the ability to uncover election fraud?

This is what that recommendation says:

In order to make the enforcement of the Canada Elections Act more effective, it is recommended that the Commissioner of Canada Elections be given the power to apply to a judge for an order to compel any person to provide information that is relevant to an investigation. ...the inability to compel testimony is one of the most significant obstacles to effective enforcement of the Act. The Chief Electoral Officer strongly recommends that this power be given to the Commissioner to facilitate and accelerate the manner in which allegations are investigated. [...]

The Commissioner of Canada Elections strongly supports this recommendation.

The minister rejected this recommendation and is refusing to give the commissioner the power to apply to a judge for an order to compel any persons to provide information that is relevant to an investigation. Why? Is the minister satisfied with the current situation? Is he trying to protect reluctant witnesses? Is he pleased or reassured that proper investigations are being impeded today, as was described in the 2012-13 annual report of the Commissioner of Canada Elections? The following is a quote from the report:

...investigators often face reluctant witnesses. Frequently, key individuals will simply refuse to be interviewed or they will initially accept, only to later decline. In some cases, they will participate in interviews but will provide only partial information and incomplete answers, often citing a faulty recollection of events or the inability to retrieve key documents. In other cases, a potential witness will profess a complete willingness to cooperate, but the process will take time – resulting in information being provided slowly and in an incomplete fashion. Under the legislative regime as it currently exists, potential witnesses (e.g. candidates, official agents, representatives of political parties) do not have any obligation to cooperate with or assist investigators.

In a CBC interview on February 8, this past weekend, the Chief Electoral Officer said that the investigation into fraudulent calls was impeded by the fact that it was difficult to obtain witnesses' co-operation:

Many people [in that investigation] refused to talk to the commissioner even if they were not suspects. I'm afraid to say this is happening more and more in files investigated by the commissioner.

He is constantly confronted with this obstacle.

Can the minister confirm that his bill protects witnesses who refuse to co-operate with the justice system? Why is there this protection? Is this related to the robocall scandal?

Indeed, the bill would eliminate the limitation period for offences that require intent. That means that the commissioner can go back in time to catch deliberate lawbreakers. However, the Conservatives refuse to give the Commissioner of Canada Elections the authority to go to a judge to compel testimony from witnesses to election crimes. Is it because it would blow open the robocalls investigations?

The minister argues that witnesses are already required to testify in court once formal allegations have been made, but everybody can see the problem with this argument. If the Commissioner of Canada Elections cannot get witnesses to co-operate during the investigation phase, the crucial step during which evidence is sought, how can the commissioner obtain the evidence required to make such formal allegations? The minister points out that the commissioner can already seek a warrant to obtain documents from a judge, but what the commissioner needs, as much or more than documents, is witness co-operation.

The minister says that his bill introduces a new penalty for those who obstruct an investigation or provide inaccurate information to investigators. However, obstructing is not the same thing as refusing to speak or co-operate. The minister very craftily straddles that line.

Furthermore, the minister states that the elections commissioner currently has all of the same investigatory powers as police officers. However, what the Chief Electoral Officer or the Commissioner of Canada Elections are asking for is a power that the police do not have but the Commissioner of Competition already has, and that is the power to apply to a judge for an order to compel any person to provide information that is relevant to an investigation. The question the minister must answer is, why does his bill not provide the Commissioner of Canada Elections with the power already held by the Commissioner of Competition under section 11 of the Competition Act? Will the minister answer this simple question?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Minister of State (Democratic Reform)]

I will answer the simple question, Mr. Speaker. The power that the hon. member is asking for is a power that police officers do not have, even when they are investigating far more heinous crimes than the alleged offences that the member across has listed.

My question to him, though, is about the issue of illegal loans. Elections Canada has already said that Liberal leadership contenders in the 2006 leadership race are not in compliance with the act because they have refused to pay back hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans that became illegal donations. That by itself is not an offence. However, if Liberal leadership candidates used those loans to deliberately evade donation limits, that would be an offence under the existing Canada Elections Act.

Has the member been contacted by the Commissioner of Canada Elections as part of an investigation into whether leadership contenders in the race, during which he was a candidate, deliberately used loans to evade donation limits?

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would say to my hon. colleague that I completely co-operate with Elections Canada. However, I am sorry that it is not possible to say the same about him. He is always fighting Elections Canada. There has never been an MP in the history of Canada who has fought Elections Canada more than the current minister of democratic reform.

I am very disappointed that the minister did not answer my simple question, which I will repeat. Why does his bill not provide the Commissioner of Canada Elections with the power already held by the Commissioner of Competition under section 11 of the Competition Act? Why did he not do that?

I am sure the minister is aware that New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta, Yukon, and many other countries, gave the ability to election officials to directly compel testimony.

What our Chief Electoral Officer is asking for is not the power to compel but the authority to ask a judge to compel reluctant witnesses. Why is the minister afraid to put that in his bill? It is a very simple question.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech on Bill C-23. I would like to ask him a very specific question about a point that he did not have time to talk about. That will let him talk about it a little.

The bill runs the risk of affecting voting in Canada, because it completely eliminates Elections Canada's educational mandate. Between elections, Elections Canada was able to conduct campaigns to raise awareness, especially among young people, of their right to vote. During the elections, Elections Canada also did election simulations. That was all part of Elections Canada's educational mandate, which allowed it to use resources to make people aware of their duty to vote.

The bill seems to exclude all that. Elections Canada will concentrate only on certain things. Everything else, including its educational mandate, will be eliminated.

What does he think of that? How will this impact voting in Canada?

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this kind of thing makes absolutely no sense. Over the weekend, the Chief Electoral Officer said that he was not aware of this kind of thing happening anywhere else in the world. Nowhere else in the world is there a law prohibiting the organization responsible for elections from promoting elections to the public.

The minister claims that this is our job, as members of Parliament. The problem is that MPs and candidates are so busy winning elections that, aside from the last day, when we remind everyone to participate in democracy, we do not spend much time encouraging people to vote. Unfortunately, I must say that some parties run very negative campaigns. The sociology of voting shows that negative campaigns and personal attacks discourage many voters from going to the polls.

We need Elections Canada to take a lead role on this.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to stand in this place today and speak in favour of Bill C-23, the fair elections act, for a number of reasons. We finally have a governance model that would give Canadians even more confidence that elections are being run in a fair manner, but there are also provisions in Bill C-23 that would seriously impede those who wish to perpetrate election fraud by bringing down stricter penalties and even jail time in some cases for those fraudsters who want to try to unduly affect the outcome of an election.

Before I talk about specific elements within the bill, I do want to spend a few moments of my time dispelling some of the myths that have been propagated by members of the opposition, particularly the members of the NDP.

Without question, it is fair to say that the NDP has absolutely no credibility when it comes to presenting opposition to this bill. Let me give two examples.

The first example is that, the day the Minister of State (Democratic Reform) introduced Bill C-23 in Parliament, the member for Toronto—Danforth, who is also the democratic reform critic for the NDP, went outside this chamber and said that he and the entire NDP caucus would be opposing Bill C-23, but he had to admit that he had not read the bill.

The fair elections act is a comprehensive analysis, and it presents quite specific proposals on how to make the Elections Act stronger and fairer for all Canadians. However, the member for Toronto—Danforth, who is the point person on the NDP side to criticize any democratic reform initiatives, had not read the bill. He is a former law professor at Osgoode Hall Law School. I wonder whether or not that member, when he was teaching law to his students, would advocate that type of approach: to disagree with testimony in a legal proceeding without reading the testimony, or oppose contracts without reading the contracts. Of course he would not. However, that is the approach the New Democrats always take. They are simply not credible.

There is even one more hypocritical example I will point out, which is laughable, and every time I think about this I have to break out in laughter. That is the position the NDP takes with respect to the time allocation on Bill C-23.

In debate, the NDP continually states that five days of debate is not long enough to debate this bill and that somehow our government is trying to suppress the democratic rights of parliamentarians to adequately debate legislation. That is the position it has taken. I heard the member for Newton—North Delta making that very argument at the start of this debate. On Friday afternoon, I heard the member for Vancouver East advance that same argument.

The hypocritical nature of that argument is that, the day after this bill was introduced in Parliament, the aforementioned member for Toronto—Danforth, the democratic reform critic for the NDP, stood in this place and presented a motion to limit debate to five hours and then send it to committee. How can the New Democrats argue that five hours of debate is proper and good but five days of debate is somehow suppressing democracy? It is so hypocritical and so over the top that it is laughable, yet every NDP speaker who has stood up in this place makes and advances that argument. The NDP has no credibility on this issue whatsoever.

If we may, let us turn our attention to a couple of elements within the bill that illustrate why this is a good bill and a governance model that we should have had long ago in this country.

The first provision I want to speak to is the fact that, when this bill is finally given royal assent and becomes law, the Commissioner of Elections will have the tools at his disposal and the independence to properly conduct investigations of election violations. For some reason, the members of the opposition seem to think this is a bad thing. However, here is the current situation. This is why it is untenable as it stands right now.

Currently, both the Commissioner of Elections and the Director of Public Prosecutions answer to the Chief Electoral Officer. That is untenable as it, in effect, makes the Chief Electoral Officer the judge, jury, and prosecutor of all flagrant allegations of abuse, either real or imagined, and that simply cannot be allowed to continue. The Commissioner of Elections, by gaining total independence, then would have the ability to independently and impartially conduct investigations.

Frankly, any Canadian would be able to make or lodge complaints with the Commissioner of Elections, suggesting that investigations occur if they feel a violation has occurred, but they would be conducted independently of the Chief Electoral Officer. That is a good thing. One would think that the Chief Electoral Officer would welcome that because it demonstrates clearly to Canadians that his office is independent and the Commissioner of Elections, a separate arm, is independent as well. Unfortunately, it appears neither the Chief Electoral Officer nor members of the opposition feel that is an appropriate distinction. It is certainly one that I feel is appropriate.

Let me point out what the bill also would do. It would ensure that the democratic will of Canadians is respected. I point again to a recent example we have seen and talked about in the last few days, where the member for Selkirk—Interlake was subject to a lot of criticism by members of the opposition and in the media. Frankly, some accused the member of cheating in the 2011 election—

[An hon. member]

Unbelievable.

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

It was unbelievable, as one of my colleagues pointed out, because he did nothing wrong. There was an accounting dispute between the member and Elections Canada, one that was finally resolved in favour of the member. The overarching argument was that Elections Canada claimed the member had overspent in the 2011 election by tens of thousands of dollars. When the final resolution came to pass, it was agreed upon by Elections Canada that overspending was less than $500. That is what the member for Selkirk—Interlake had claimed all along. In other words, the member was right and Elections Canada was wrong, but the egregious part of all of this is that Elections Canada sent a letter to the Speaker of the House stating that because, in its opinion, the member had overspent in the 2011 campaign, that the member should not be allowed to sit or vote in this place.

Elections Canada did not have to do that. First, it was inappropriate at the very least. Second, Elections Canada should have at least allowed a full examination of all evidence, and if the member wanted to go to court for a decision, Elections Canada should have allowed the resolution to take place through the courts. That was not the case, but with this bill now it would be. So it respects the will of Canadians; the tens of thousands of people who voted for the member would not then be subject to the type of fear that their duly elected member would be removed from this place and would not be able to represent their views.

The bill addresses that. It would allow that any disputes between Elections Canada and a sitting member would have to be resolved completely, even if that meant going to court, before the draconian measure of trying to impose the severe sanction of removing the member from a seat would take place. That is called fairness, and that is why the bill is presented to the House. It is to make elections fairer for all Canadians but, at the same time, to impose strong sanctions against those who may wish to abuse the rights of Canadians in an election.

I look forward to more debate on this matter, and I very much look forward to this being presented before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs in short order, so we can begin to conduct an in-depth examination of this very, very fine piece of legislation.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, my question deals with the whole process that I have seen in the years I have been in Parliament.

First, we started with this photo ID bill in 2007. Through that, many people in my riding lost their ability to vote. That happened. In Nunavut, it was an epidemic. Now, we are getting to a point where we would take away the vouchers.

It is really an insane situation for people in rural communities, where the returning officer will know the people coming into the voting booth, but will not allow them to vote because they do not have the proper identification papers, and now they would not be able to use someone else to vouch for them.

How would this work for my constituents? What is the government doing to the people in rural and remote locations across the country? They are people who have a right to vote in this country. Why is the government doing this to them?

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

Mr. Speaker, again, an NDP member is trying to point out what he considers to be flaws within the legislation, yet the New Democrats were the ones who tried to curb the debate on this very matter.

Specifically to his point, everyone who wants to come in to vote has an obligation to prove they are eligible to do so. That is a fundamental tenet of our democracy. To say there would be hardship on Canadians, perhaps because they live in rural or remote areas, is absolutely ludicrous. It is preposterous.

There would be 39 different pieces of identification that one could present. That number, again, is 39. Is the member suggesting that people in his riding would not be able to come up with at least one of those 39 pieces of identification to prove who they are and their residence? That is absolute hogwash.