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

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his comments. I also thank him for remembering that I ran for leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada.

That gave me the opportunity to hear from Canadians across the country, and I talked to them. Their concerns about what has happened to our democracy matter to me.

What is more, we have a Prime Minister who has referred to Elections Canada, a neutral, non-partisan agency charged with making sure our elections are fair, as being, in his own words:

“The jackasses at Elections Canada are out of control”.

This, as he aimed to fundraise, on the back of his dismissive comments about our public servants who were charged with ensuring fair and free elections.

Elections Canada has been attempting to do just that, in a laundry list of election violations, and it is now being punished by the Conservative government in an effort to provide an advantage to themselves and to reduce the percentage of the public who vote by marginalizing those who need help the most.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and for Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to hear the Liberals talk about this bill in light of the member before me mentioning that ensuring a fair election is something that the Liberals are afraid of, that because we brought forward a bill that would ensure a fair election, would see leadership candidates being responsible for the debts they incur, and would bring in limits with respect to leadership contests, that is somehow a disadvantage to the Liberal Party.

Imagine that, a bill that would make elections fairer, make it easier for Canadians to vote, and would give them more access to polling stations is somehow something that the Liberal Party is terrified of. The fact that they are in third place in the House of Commons, I guess, must be the fault of Elections Canada and not the fault of their terrible policies and decisions they made when they were in government.

More specific to the bill, there has been a lot of discussion on a number of its aspects. Some of the debate has been good and some not so good. I note that some 16 New Democrats and 16 Liberals have already spoken to this bill. Many have mentioned vouching and voter identification. I will get to that in a second, but I first want to talk about the process of elections and why it was important for us to bring forward change.

We know that members opposite, from both parties, including the government, all knew that some changes had to be made to the Canada Elections Act. That goes without saying. We have, of course, been consulting for a long time. The Minister of State (Democratic Reform) and the Minister of State (Multiculturalism) have been working very hard on this, and we have brought forward a very comprehensive bill.

One thing we had to do was look at the people who have been charged with undertaking elections. I listened to the Chief Electoral Officer yesterday on TV and he said something I believe to be true. He said that Canada is a very large, very diverse country, and that voting in a country of this size has a lot of challenges. I would say one of the most important functions we have for preserving our democracy is making sure that elections are done fairly and that Canadians can have confidence in the fact that the people who have voted are the right people and that those votes reflect the population.

After the 41st general election, Elections Canada sought some advice from the people who actually work for it, in a series of post-mortem sessions with returning officers. This is a result of Elections Canada talking to all returning officers in all of the 308 ridings across this country. On page 10 of the report, it states:

ROs identified that there is a need to give out more information to electors; for example, there are not enough outreach activities and communications about where the RO office is located and on the voting process.

They suggest taking out ads explaining that advance polls would be busier. They suggest that ads should be taken out to tell people how to vote, what identification is required, the special balloting process. They are saying that the process of holding an election is something that these returning officers—and, again, I refer everybody to page 10 of the report—thought was something Elections Canada could have done a better job of in helping to organize an election across such a vast land.

I will also go to page 17 of that same report, which talks a bit about the problem that some of the returning officers had at advance polls. It states that:

A high voter turnout was a reality for most ROs, significant enough that there were many complaints about wait times. To improve the flow when it is busy, ROs suggest putting a single signature line on the list of electors….

It appears that having electors write too much information was causing a dilemma.

Those two items, I think, speak to the fact that the people who were placed on the ground to make sure our elections are done fairly were experiencing problems of congestion, of people not knowing where to vote, when to vote, and what identification was needed in order to vote. The returning officers suggested that should be the role that Elections Canada should focus on, going forward, if it wants to make the process of elections better.

I note that in the bill brought forward by the Minister of State for Democratic Reform, we took that advice from the returning officers and put it right into the legislation, re-focusing the mandate of Elections Canada so that it can focus on what its own employees said is a priority: getting people to vote and making sure elections run smoothly.

When we talk about why the vote is not where we would like it to be and why there has been a decline in voter participation, clearly, one reason has to be that Canadians do not always find it easy to vote. That has to be one of the problems. We are seeing that when we add advance polls, more Canadians use them. The bill would add another day of voting, making it easier for Canadians to vote, so having a fourth day of advance polling, we think, will help to get more Canadians out to the polls.

Ultimately, I find it passing ridiculous that the opposition parties are suggesting the reason Canadians are not voting is that Elections Canada is not placing an ad in the paper, explaining to them or trying to energize them to vote, because that is our job. It is the job of parties and candidates to get people to vote, to energize them to vote.

I cannot imagine anybody would miss the fact that there is an election going on. There are signs everywhere, and the media, every night, follows around all three campaigns on TV. There is advertising, phone calls are made, and literature is delivered at doors. People are knocking on doors.

Elections Canada does some work with respect to telling people how to vote and where to vote. The voter cards explain to people where their poll is. I cannot imagine people not understanding that an election is taking place, but I think what they get upset about is that when they go to vote, it is a difficult process. They have to wait in line. The bill would put more resources in hand to make sure it is done fairly.

With respect to vouching, I would refer all members of the House to page 25 of the bill. Of course there are 39 pieces of identification that are acceptable with respect to proving an address, but the bill also goes further to say, on page 25, in both French and English:

(3.1) If the address contained in the piece or pieces of identification provided under subsection (2) does not prove the elector’s residence but is consistent with information related to the elector that appears on the list of electors, the elector’s residence is deemed to have been proven.

That gives everybody the opportunity to make sure they cast a ballot.

However, is there a burden of proof? Absolutely. I cannot imagine that Canadians would accept that we should just completely drop the demands for identification and say that anybody can vote. That would be inappropriate. At the same time, we are expecting that Canadians have identification, but in instances there is still, according to the bill on page 25, in French and English, an opportunity for Canadians to cast a ballot.

It goes even further. We heard a lot about robocalls, and not just during elections. The riding of the member for Guelph was singled out and charged with respect to robocalls, and I think all Canadians have accepted that all parties have to do a better job of making sure that we do this fairly.

That is why the CRTC would be maintaining a registry. They would maintain scripts and recordings so that Canadians and the Elections Commissioner would have access to information if an investigation is required.

In summary, we would be letting Elections Canada do what it needs to do to be the actual guardians of elections in this country: to focus on voting, to focus on the process, and at the same time, we would be giving the Elections Commissioner the power he needs to make sure that voting is done fairly and that nobody breaks the rules. When people do break the rules, the new act would give the Commissioner the tools he needs to enforce the Elections Act in a way that we have not seen in a long time.

I do hope all members will take a moment to read the bill and reflect on that before they cast their ballot.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to ask my colleague a question on a very specific point he made in his speech.

I am referring to the elimination of Election Canada's mandate to educate Canadians by raising awareness about their duty and right to vote. Anyone who follows question period even a little bit knows that the Parliamentary Secretary has two daughters who are still minors.

I wonder whether he thinks it is right that Elections Canada can no longer go to the schools to teach young people that they have a right to vote and that they can exercise that right when they are 18.

Does he think that there is no benefit to running these awareness campaigns between elections and not necessarily during the election period? Elections Canada had an educational component to its mandate that helped make people aware of their right to vote.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think our schools also have the opportunity and the responsibility to teach our students why it is important to vote. That is why on Remembrance Day every year we take the time out to honour the veterans who guaranteed and fought to make sure we have the right to vote.

Getting back to reality, when asked about the process of election—and here I would request the member to take a look at this—the returning officers themselves on pages 10 and 17 identified the fact that the process of voting is what Elections Canada needed to look at moving forward. How to vote, where to vote, the identification needed, when the advanced polls would be, the special ballots, and the location of the returning officer were things they felt would help improve elections and make the process of voting easier.

We reflected upon that and what the Chief Electoral Officer said, including as recently as yesterday, about the difficulty of holding elections in this country. We have put that in the bill and have guaranteed it moving forward. I think Canadians can have confidence that all elections moving forward will continue to be fair.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I believe it is very important that we recognize that the proposed legislation before us has in fact fallen short and that the government has dropped the ball on this.

The government can talk all it wants inside the chamber on what it believes about this particular bill. However, I would challenge the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister. Would the member take me up on an offer to go outside Ottawa, whether Winnipeg or Toronto or anywhere else he chooses, to debate this proposed legislation with no time allocation as the government has done with the current bill, where we can talk about the good, the bad, and the shortcomings of the legislation? I would welcome the opportunity.

Would the parliamentary secretary be prepared to debate this legislation outside Ottawa with someone like me and justify his government's position on it?

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to the member of Parliament from Manitoba, I tend to focus on my riding and my community, speaking to my constituents and hearing what they have to say.

The process, of course, will continue not only through debate here but also at the procedure and House affairs committee where it will be given another thorough vetting. The committee will hear witnesses and the bill will come back to the House for more debate.

I note that only six members of the Liberal Party have taken the opportunity to speak on the bill, and for the most part they have talked about why they lost an election over the last number of years as opposed to actually focusing on what is in the bill.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, does the parliamentary secretary agree with the provision in proposed legislation mandating that an additional early voting day fall on a Sunday? If it were the last election, that would have been Easter Sunday. Does that bother him at all?

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, under the new proposed legislation there would be four opportunities for voting in advance polls. One extra day, I think, would help make sure that more Canadians have the opportunity to vote.

On Easter Sunday, I will be in church with my family, as will a lot of other people. I suppose there will be a lot of Canadians who are not in church on Easter Sunday. We are a very diverse country. That is why we are adding an extra day so that all Canadians have access to four additional days to vote, not including of course other opportunities for Canadians to vote by special ballot.

I think that is good news for Canadians and good news for democracy, and I hope the hon. member will take a look at that and support it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I feel privileged to stand today to speak to Bill C-23. I am going to go back in history a little and talk about my background.

I had parents who were good enough to speak at the dining room table about things like elections, so my six brothers and sisters and I learned about elections that way. We learned from them the importance and duty of Canadians to go vote when it was time to vote. Sometimes we talked about the issues, even before we were old enough to know some of them. I had that ability in my past life. Then I became a small business person who had a very busy life. Twenty-four hours a day 7 days a week I worried about a business I had to run. However, I am proud to say I do not remember ever missing an election: municipal, provincial, or federal, because my parents had instilled in me the duty of Canadians to vote.

Long before politics I never thought about the actual running of elections. I never thought about the rules that are there to make sure Canadians vote fairly and accurately. I did not think of them, but I certainly went to polling booths, gave them my name, showed my ID, received a ballot, and made my choice based on the work that the parties or the candidates had done during an election.

Fast forward now through a whole pile of life to 10 years ago when I decided I would become a candidate. I became a little more interested in what was happening with elections: how elections were run, what Elections Canada did, who made sure people got to the polling stations, who generated the lists, and who made the rules as to what days we could or could not vote. I still ran into some of my peers, small business owners and other very busy people, who would have loved to have more time, who wanted to exercise their duty as Canadians to vote, but sometimes the hockey practice or a scout meeting got in the way. We know how that is: life gets busy and that happens.

Move forward now into this Parliament. I have been here almost 10 years. Now, as the chair of the procedure and House affairs committee for a good number of years, five I think, I have been dealing with Elections Canada during that time. I now know more about elections and Elections Canada than I care to know. After each election, the Chief Electoral Officer writes a report and sends it back to Parliament. The procedure and House affairs committee gets to review it and from that comes up with elections legislation. The Chief Electoral Officer is one of the people from whom we get most of our ideas for changes to the legislation. We certainly have had many discussions at committee.

It is a fun committee. I see some of the members here in the House today. We tend to get a lot done, but elections are one of the things we are responsible for. We tend to work on a good, consensus basis without a great deal of argument. We have had many witnesses over those times looking at the Chief Electoral Officer's report and other pieces in our discussions about elections. We have had many briefs come to us from those witnesses. This is where this piece of legislation has come from. It has come from answering those questions.

I am going to say something from a business point of view. First, if I am trying to attract more customers, as a business person I need to first find out why customers are not coming to my business and where else they are going. We have done the same thing with elections. If people are not going out to vote, let us find out why and then we will know where to go to find those people.

As the speaker before me said, why a person votes, why they are making that urgent visit to the voting booth, has to do with the parties. It has to do with the candidates. However, the who, what, when, and where the polling station is, what time it is open, and how many of them there are is set by Elections Canada. Most non-voters told Elections Canada in a survey that practical reasons were what prevented them from voting in 2011. Travelling was cited by 17%, as they were away from home. Work or school scheduling accounted for 13%. Also, being too busy was cited by 10%, and lack of information was mentioned by 7%. That is just to name a few.

Over the past several elections there has been a steady rise in the proportion of electors identifying everyday life issues as the main reason for not voting, and a steady decline for political reasons. That is according to Elections Canada, the “Report on the Evaluations of the 41st General Election of May 2, 2011” by the Chief Electoral Officer, which we have discussed thoroughly at committee.

Better customer service will remove some of these practical issues, some of the reasons like, “I can't make it because it's the middle of hockey practice, it's the middle of my business meeting and I had to stay at work”.

We are offering more voting days. During the 2011 general election, more than two million Canadians cast their ballot on an advance poll day. Two million Canadians took into account the fact they were not going to be able to be there for voting day and went to an advance poll. We are adding an extra advance poll on the seventh day. So the tenth, the ninth, the eighth, and the seventh days before election day will now all be advance poll days, the seventh being a Sunday.

My pastor knows where I should be on Sundays but he also knew that I operated a business seven days a week and that sometimes I was not always able to be there, which also opens up the opportunity that afternoon of my going to an advance poll. That in itself offers something to the percentage of people that I said, from a customer service point of view, were not able to find a day to vote.

Let us go from attracting those customers to the poll to the point of view of my being a business person trying to attract more people to our business. In that case, the other step I would take is to tell them where I was. I would tell them what time my business was open. I would tell them when I was available to give them the service they were looking for. That is all we are asking of the Chief Electoral Officer and Elections Canada, to please tell people where and when they can vote. Please tell Canadians how many days are available to vote and that, by special ballot, it is almost the whole 35 days of an election. There will now be five advance polls days plus a full day of election day voting at each of the other polls.

This is a tough business to run with 308 ridings across this country, soon to be 338, and about 200 polling stations in each of those ridings. Imagine turning that on and off from an Elections Canada point of view. I admire its ability to turn that type of service on and off and the way it is done, but let us use our time to tell the people of Canada when and where they can vote. Let us as politicians, as members of parties or not, give the reasons why people want to go to the polls. It is up to Elections Canada to tell them when and where. It is up to us to get them there and tell them why.

I will recap quickly. It is about customer service. There are many other parts of the bill that I know, when it gets to committee, the committee will be happy to deal with and talk about. We will have a great discussion. We will certainly see lots of lots of witnesses. In summary, I just wanted to talk about the customer service side of an election and the customer service side of Elections Canada.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague's speech. I admit that I find the comparison a bit clumsy. Obviously all the comparisons are a bit clumsy, but here the hon. member was talking about customer service as it relates to a civic right, that of voting to determine who will lead the country. I think that one important thing that has not been mentioned is the fact that a large part of the population does not vote because they have become quite cynical about politicians and politics. That is what we should be focusing on.

However, Bill C-23 before us today is something that will help fuel this cynicism. Once they see such measures as increasing the annual contribution ceiling, those who feel that elections are bought will wonder whether there is any point in voting, given that the elections are bought by those with the means to do so, in any case. What we must do—and Bill C-23 does not do—is show each and every Canadian how very important their right to vote is. By eliminating the prerogatives of the Chief Electoral Officer, this bill would reduce the opportunities for education.

How is the right to vote a customer service? It is civic right. I would like the hon. member to explain that one to me. It seems that the comparison does not hold water.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will share with the member opposite that we will agree to disagree, if that is the case.

The civic right is a civic duty. It is the duty of voters to know where they need to vote and when they need to vote. It is the duty of the political parties to convince people who they should vote for and that it is time to do it.

The cynicism comes when the rules are weakened or are used in a way that is arguably incorrect. We set the rules in place so that people know what to expect when they go to vote, what they need to have with them when they approach the voting station, and what to expect when they get to the voting station. That is how we remove the cynicism.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, this member would be in a unique position to answer this question, given his experience in business and politics.

One of the offences covered under the Competition Act is deceptive telemarketing. One of the powers afforded to the director of competition under the Competition Act is the power to compel witnesses to testify, under oath, before a charge is laid. A complaint of the Chief Electoral Officer is that he was ill-equipped to do the robocalls investigation, which was deceptive telemarketing in a political context, if you will, because he did not have that power.

As someone who has had experience in business and in politics, would the hon. member explain why the director of competition has greater tools to investigate deceptive telemarketing practices than Elections Canada does?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question and the kind words that I think he said about me.

The real answer is that this piece of legislation moves the covering of robocalls, of using telephone devices in an election campaign, to the people who do that best. As a business person and a politician, I look to the experts in the field. In this case, we have gone to the experts in the field who have said that the CRTC is the right place to be monitoring people who are using telephone communications.

We have it right. We have the experts on the job. They have already found them. They were able to by monitoring the use of telephone communications in both election and non-election times. I believe a member of this House, from Guelph, was even found guilty by them for what he did during the last campaign.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

Order. It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the question to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment is as follows: the hon. member for Québec, Search and Rescue.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-23, which was introduced last Tuesday. The bill is 242 pages long and was introduced less than a week ago. Today is the last day for debate at second reading of this bill.

As I said, the bill was introduced seven days ago, including the weekend. Of course, there is no debate in the House on the weekend. This 242-page bill was introduced less than seven days ago. The second reading vote is already happening this evening, as though we the members have had enough time to carefully analyze the bill and debate it here in the House. The bill will very soon be sent to committee. Members first saw this 242-page bill about a week and a half ago. The whole process has been very quick.

This is not the first time this has happened. In fact, since the Conservatives won a majority, this is unfortunately what has happened with every bill they introduce in the House.

It is interesting to know the background of the minister who introduced Bill C-23. The minister of state was one of the biggest defenders of the recent in and out scandal. He was the most partisan member and staunchly defended electoral fraud, as revealed by the Elections Canada investigation. Today, the same member is introducing electoral reform. It is a little clearer why he is so familiar with the elections act. He was the one who defended his party when it circumvented this very act. We understand why he knows it so well. His party acted very much against this act.

The minister of state also has a long history of attacks against Elections Canada. The Conservative Party is still conducting a vendetta against Elections Canada. It seems that Elections Canada is the Conservatives' arch-enemy. When anyone says the words “Elections Canada”, the Conservatives blanch and wonder what will happen. Will Elections Canada attack in the night to prevent the Conservatives from forming the government next time? Elections Canada is a completely independent entity. As soon as someone dares utter a criticism, however mild, the Conservatives see them as an enemy of the nation. As soon as anyone criticizes the Conservative government, even for a single second, that person becomes an arch-enemy. It is clear to the Conservatives that that person belongs to another political party and is engaging in hyperpartisanship. However, we know very well that Elections Canada is an independent entity. We do not have to prove that today.

The bill contains many measures, but I will not have time to talk about each one. I will talk about those that most surprised me when I read the bill. Some of my colleagues mentioned that there will be no more vouching at polling stations. A voter can get on the list of electors the day of the election. In fact, a voter can go to a polling station with a witness or voucher who can prove that the voter does live in that riding.

Furthermore, if the bill passes—which is not yet the case—the voter card will be refused. Voters receive this card in their mailbox and can use it when they go to vote. Voters also have to show a document as proof of identity. The Conservatives tend to forget that a voter cannot vote with just the red and white card.

A voter may have this card and present it to the person at the table at the entrance. When he or she goes to the polling station, the voter must also show a piece of identification that has the same name as that found on the voter card. That is how we prove our identity. It is not just the card that allows a person to vote, as some Conservatives seem to have been saying during today's debate.

In my view, this will prevent or certainly deter many people from exercising their right to vote. It will make it more difficult for voters, especially young people, to exercise their right to vote.

Students in Sherbrooke are a perfect example. It depends on when the election takes place. Let us take the example of a September election. Students are just arriving on campus and, for many of them, it is their first semester at university. Naturally, their primary residence is their parents' home, in a city other than Sherbrooke.

They have just arrived to start their studies, they may not have proof of residency and the election is being held in September. It is possible to use a hydro or telephone bill, or tenant or automobile insurance, or something else. It is possible to show proof of residency to Elections Canada, which designates 39 pieces of identification that can be shown in order to vote.

If the government eliminates the possibility of having someone vouch for you and using the voter card, many young people who want to vote will be unable to do so, including young people in Sherbrooke. They will not be at home, at their primary residence, at their parents' house. They will be in Sherbrooke, on campus, and will have no way of voting unless they return home.

If a communications student at the Université de Sherbrooke, whose primary residence is in Chicoutimi, wants to vote, the only option he would have would be to go home, a seven-hour drive from the university. This kind of situation may be rare, because I know that there is a good communications program in the Saguenay region. I think we can all imagine that this student will not end up voting on election day, since he will not make a 14-hour return trip to go vote, especially if he was not able to travel for advance polling either.

Many young people will not be able to exercise their right to vote, even though I am sure that everyone here in this House wants young people to be able to vote. The same goes for other members of society who are at a disadvantage with this bill, such as the homeless. How will they be able to vote? We have heard a lot about aboriginal people. People who live on reserves do not always have the necessary pieces of identification. This will prevent them from exercising their right to vote.

In asking questions of my colleagues earlier, I also commented about the fact that the government wants to keep big money out of politics. However, I feel that the opposite is going to happen with this bill. The bill is going against the current trends we are seeing everywhere in various jurisdictions, including Quebec, where the limit for political party donations is being reduced. The opposite is happening in the bill we are debating today.

The government wants to increase the limit for donations to political parties, which goes against the current tendency to try and eliminate the influence of money in politics as much as possible. Saying that the bill will keep big money out of politics is completely at odds with the measures included in the bill, measures that increase parties' election expenses and the donations that parties can receive. I do not understand why the government says “big money out of politics”, when the measures in the bill run counter to that statement.

I will oppose this bill at second reading, like most of my colleagues, I hope. At the very least, if the bill makes it to committee, I hope we will be able to improve it. However, at this stage, I will vote against it.