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

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent for her excellent speech.

I am blessed to have her for a colleague. I am not a member of the committee she is on, but she did a good job of explaining the troubling situation we are facing today. While I was listening to her, I was not sure whether she was talking about Canada. That is how troubling this is.

Since my arrival three years ago, I have been witness to the Conservatives' dismantling of Canadian institutions. We have watched them dismantle human rights, the environment, the country's economy, and we are now witnessing them most definitely dismantle Canada's democratic institution. This troubles me.

Why does she think that there is nothing to be done with these people before us, despite the sensible recommendations that we have put forward to improve this bill? It is important to mention that this legislation affects Canada's democracy.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, obviously I thank my esteemed colleague from Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou for his question and his comments. He has a good understanding of the issues we are currently facing.

Yes, it really is a problem when you get to the point of attacking something as basic as democracy. This specific case involves legislation affecting all Canadians, without exception. It will change the order of things and, at the end of the day, will do nothing but harm our democratic institutions.

To summarize the context this was done in, I will quote my leader, who aptly described the Conservative mentality as follows: “they love being in power, but they do not like governing”.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise today to speak in support of the fair elections act, and I appreciate the opportunity to do so.

Bill C-23 addresses important issues that are fundamentally essential to a strong democracy, and it has succeeded in bringing them to the forefront for public discussion. It is important that my constituents in Richmond Hill and Canadians across our country be aware of how this important legislation would strengthen the integrity of our voting processes. That is why I am pleased to highlight some of the important improvements this bill would bring to our democratic system. Bill C-23 would ensure that everyday citizens are in charge of their democracy.

In response to many of the issues identified by the Chief Electoral Officer in terms of where improvements are needed, the fair elections act would implement 38 of the recommendations found in the Chief Electoral Officer's report following the 40th general election and in his more recent report on deceptive communications. The fair elections act addresses many of the recommendations made in the Neufeld report, which was commissioned by Elections Canada following the 2011 general election, such as the recommendation to do the following:

To further support the simplification of procedures for polling staff, request the following amendments to the Canada Elections Act: Reduce, as much as possible, the number of verbal oaths required from electors. Where legal formality is warranted to ensure procedural integrity, instead require signed declaration forms.

It also addresses the recommendation to

Ensure there is a supervisor in charge at every voting site, that their authority is clear, and that each supervisor has the power to ensure polling staff comply with legally required procedures

as well as the recommendation to

Investigate ways to reduce the number of voters who must have their identity and address of residence vouched for on Election Day, for instance by:

i. Improving and extending the pre-vote advertising campaign that encourages electors to bring appropriate identification to the polling site with them.

Bill C-23 addresses important issues, such as the significant drop in voter turnout that has been taking place over the last 25 years and the need to improve the integrity of our voting system.

We simply need to do a better job of motivating electors to vote. Citizens in countries around the world have fought and died for their access to democracy and their right to vote. We here in Canada must not be complacent, nor should we take this very special privilege for granted.

We cannot afford to stand still on these issues, and we will not. Let me explain how Bill C-23 would improve the integrity of our democratic system.

The amended bill proposes to eliminate identity vouching. The fact that this is currently allowed has actually been a surprise for many of my constituents and to many Canadians, who were dismayed to learn that this practice even exists.

By Elections Canada's own admission, the practice of vouching, whereby someone states that he or she knows someone else who has no identification, is rife with irregularities. I would like to read into the record an important passage from Elections Canada's own compliance review, or the Neufeld review, as it is commonly referred to, that was undertaken following the 2011 election. It states:

All Canadian citizens, 18 years of age or older, have the right to vote in the federal electoral district in which they reside. The Canada Elections Act provides a wide range of procedural safeguards designed to protect the integrity of the electoral process. A subset of these safeguards requires voters to demonstrate eligibility (identity, citizenship, age, and residency) before they can receive a ballot.

For the vast majority of electors who are already registered at their correct address, Election Day procedures involve a simple, efficient check of a single piece of photo ID to confirm identity and address of residence. However, for any persons who are not registered, or do not possess accessible identification documents at the time of voting, election officers must administer special “exception” procedures prescribed in legislation.

Ensuring voter eligibility through the administration of these special “exception” procedures is an expected part of election officers' duties. Errors that involve a failure to properly administer these procedures are serious. The courts refer to such serious errors as “irregularities” which can result in votes being declared invalid.

The report goes on to say that most Canadian elections officers struggle to administer the complex rules of exception procedures they are expected to conduct as part of their temporary election day roles.

I quote again from the Neufeld report. It states:

An estimated 15 percent of voters need some type of “exception” process to be administered before they can be issued a ballot. While administering “regular” voting procedures is usually straightforward, the audit showed that errors are made in the majority of cases that require the use of non-regular processes. Serious errors, of a type the courts consider “irregularities” that can contribute to an election being overturned, were found to occur in 12 percent of all Election Day cases involving voter registration, and 42 percent of cases involving identity vouching. Overall, the audit estimated that “irregularities” occurred for 1.3 percent of all cases of Election Day voting during the 2011...election. More than 12 million Canadian citizens cast ballots on May 2, 2011 and the audit indicates that the applications of specific legal safeguards, in place to ensure each elector is actually eligible to vote, were seriously deficient in more than 165,000 cases due to systemic errors made by election officials. Averaged across 308 ridings, election officers made over 500 serious administrative errors per electoral district on Election Day.Obviously, this is unacceptable.

I think most Canadians would be concerned to hear that serious errors, ones that can contribute to an election being overturned, were found to occur in 42% of cases involving identity vouching. In the 2011 election, the Neufeld report found that there were 45,868 cases where no record was kept of who the voucher or the voter was. That is 45,868 cases where no record of the voucher or the voter was kept.

This same report goes on to suggest that public trust and proper administration of the electoral process is at serious risk if these error rates are not addressed. It says that the overly complex procedures to administer vouching cannot be remedied simply by improving quality assurance and concludes that redesign through simplification and rationalization is necessary to reduce the risk of such errors.

That is precisely why we have brought forward Bill C-23, the fair elections act, to address these concerns in a practical, transparent way. The status quo is simply not an option.

I agree with this statement in the Neufeld report, which states:

Citizens' trust in their electoral institutions and democratic processes are put at risk when established voting rules and procedures are seen not to be followed. Even the perception of problems can be extremely detrimental to this trust. Public trust in an electoral process is fundamental to perceptions about the legitimacy of democratic governance.

How does Bill C-23 propose to solve these problems as identified by Elections Canada? It is by allowing electors to vote with two pieces of identification that prove their identity and by taking a written oath as to their residence, provided that another elector of the same polling division who proves his or her identity and residence by providing documented proof also takes a written oath as to the elector's residence. The difference between this and what we have now is that electors will have to prove their identity.

There are 39 pieces of possible identification that could be used, including a driver's licence; health card; citizenship card; birth certificate; social insurance number card; student ID card; utility bill; hospital bracelet, worn by residents of long-term care facilities; correspondence issued by a school, college, or university; statement of government benefits; or attestation of residence from a shelter or soup kitchen or a student or seniors residence.

This new measure would allow those who do not have identification proving their residence to register and vote on polling day. By ensuring that electors could properly identify who they are within these acceptable 39 ways, we would help to restore faith and trust in the system.

To ensure the integrity of the vote, we are also proposing a verification of potential non-compliance, to be conducted after polling day, and an audit of compliance with registration and voting rules after every election. These changes would add procedural safeguards to protect against duplicate voting and impersonation.

I would also like to highlight the important ways Bill C-23 provides better customer service for voters.

In 2011, indeed 60% of non-voters cited everyday life issues as the reason for not voting. These included reasons such as travelling, work or school schedules, not enough time, or lack of information. We believe that better customer service would help remove these practical obstacles.

For example, Bill C-23 would add an additional day for advanced voting. It would also bring forward changes that would reduce congestion at the polls. Additional election officers would be appointed at the polling stations. Liaison officers would be appointed to facilitate communication between the Chief Electoral Officer and returning officers in ridings, and the time allowed for election officer training would be increased. Bill C-23 would return the role of Elections Canada back to the basics.

As noted earlier, voter turnout in general has decreased from 75% in 1988 to 51% in 2011. During this same time period, Elections Canada had responsibility for promotional campaigns. A Library of Parliament analysis also shows that from 1984 to 2000, voter turnout for youth aged 18 to 24 dropped 20 percentage points. Unfortunately, this trend has not been reversed in recent years.

It has been found that the main reason for youth not voting was not knowing where or when or how to vote. The job of an election agency is to inform citizens of the basics of voting: where to vote, when to vote, and what ID to bring. It is also incumbent upon the agency to ensure that disabled people know about the extra tools available to help them vote, such as wheelchair ramps, sign language services, or Braille services for the visually impaired. We need to devote our full attention to getting this complete information into the hands of electors.

Bill C-23 would define the public information and education mandate of the Chief Electoral Officer by specifying that advertising by the Chief Electoral Officer would focus on informing electors about the exercise of their democratic rights; about how to be a candidate; about when, where, and how to vote; and about what tools are available to assist disabled electors. The Chief Electoral Officer could also support civic education programs for primary and secondary schools.

In addition to these important changes, the fair elections act also proposes to protect voters from rogue calls and impersonation with a mandatory public registry for mass calling, prison time for impersonating elections officials, and increased penalties for deceiving people out of their votes. It would also allow the commissioner to seek tougher penalties for existing offences.

The bill would ban the use of loans to evade donation rules, and it would uphold free speech by repealing the ban on the premature transmission of election results. The bill would provide for more than a dozen new offences, making it easier for the commissioner to combat big money, rogue calls, and fraudulent voting.

We have listened to Canadians and our colleagues throughout this important debate and have supported a number of amendments to the original bill to make it even better. I thank everyone involved in this process, including the witnesses at committee, my colleagues, and the residents of my riding of Richmond Hill for their input.

Some of these amendments I have already mentioned, such as allowing vouching for residency and clarification of the mandate of the Chief Electoral Officer to include the support of civic education programs for primary and secondary schools.

Other amendments include retaining the current appointment process for central poll supervisors; eliminating the proposed exception as to what constitutes an election expense, in the case of expenses incurred to solicit monetary contributions from past supporters; and amending the provisions to require that the Chief Electoral Officer consult with the Commissioner of Canada Elections before having to issue an advance ruling or interpretation note. This would provide more time for the Chief Electoral Officer before having to issue an advance ruling or interpretation note while reducing the consultation period with the registered parties. It would give advance rulings precedential value for the Chief Electoral Officer and the commissioner with respect to similar activities or practices carried out by other political entities.

Other amendments include requiring calling service providers to keep copies of scripts and recordings for three years instead of one; allowing the Chief Electoral Officer and the Commissioner of Canada Elections to exchange information and documents; allowing the commissioner to publicly disclose information about investigations where it is in the public interest; increasing the spending limit for elections, with a longer writ period than the 37-day period; adding a clear prohibition against a third-party unable to show a link to Canada incurring more than $500 in an election; clarifying the intent of giving the commissioner the unrestricted ability to begin investigations by removing the bill's proposed evidence threshold before the commissioner may begin an investigation; clarifying the intent of having no limitation period for offences under the Canada Elections Act that require intent; making the term of the Chief Electoral Officer non-renewable; clarifying that all those who apply for a special ballot and vote at the office of the returning officer must prove their identity and residence, as they would at a polling station, thereby closing a potential loophole; and clarifying that the annual report of the Director of Public Prosecutions must contain a section prepared by the Commissioner of Canada Elections through which the commissioner would report on the activities of his office, without providing information about specific investigations.

These are common sense principles, and Canadians agree.

The Chief Electoral Officer has been very clear in saying that reform needs to be in place before the next general election.

I applaud the good work of the Minister of State for Democratic Reform in preparing the bill, which will significantly restore confidence in the electoral system and will improve voter turnout. I am proud to support the bill, and I urge all my colleagues in the House to support it.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Richmond Hill certainly has enough hot air to brag about this bill. I actually do not know how he manages to meet with his constituents and tell them with a straight face that he is improving the democratic process and making it more accessible.

In December 2005, at the press conference where I launched my first federal election campaign, I highlighted the fact that, unfortunately, 40% of our voters in Canada do not exercise their right to vote. Of that group, an even larger proportion of young and very young people, who are just becoming eligible to vote, do not participate. We are not even talking about aboriginal people who unfortunately do not participate in large numbers.

The participation rate of the most vulnerable groups of our society, which are far too easily held hostage by the powers that be, is much lower. The rate is barely 30% or 40%. In his work The Price of Inequality, Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winner in economics, described the Tea Party approach, which is used to exclude disadvantaged segments of society through methods like the ones found in Bill C-23.

How can the member for Richmond Hill exclude the weakest and most vulnerable Canadians, including those in his riding, from our country's democratic process?

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I find the member's commentary rather disturbing.

First, let me assure the member that I am very proud to represent the good people of Richmond Hill, and I make every attempt to engage my constituents in important pieces of legislation and the work that happens in the House, as I have done with this one. I can assure the hon. member that despite his fearmongering and very partisan commentary in his question, my constituents in Richmond Hill are with the 86% of Canadians across the country who support this legislation and they are onside with the 89% of all Canadians who say we need some form of identification in order to vote. There were 165,000 cases in the 2011 election.

If the hon. member can look his constituents in the eyes and tell them they can trust that every one of the cases of vouching across the country that has ever happened, or will happen if things were to transpire the way he would like them to, has been honest, then he would be disingenuous in communicating with his constituents.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a very direct and specific question for the member.

Why does this 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; that is, the power to ask a judge to compel witnesses to testify in cases of electoral fraud? Why does this bill not contain the power already held by several provincial chief electoral officers or commissioners in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta and Yukon? Internationally, other electoral management bodies have this very same power, such as Australia and the United States.

Without bobbing and weaving, without making up facts or inventing crises, can the member explain to his constituents of Richmond Hill why this is the only order of government in Canada right now that is preventing this power from going forward?

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I find it somewhat questionable that the member from the party that invented bobbing and weaving would be using those two words in a preamble to his question.

His question was specific to the role of the commissioner. It is very clear. This is a direct answer for the member, and I hope he stops speaking and listens to the answer, because he asked for it. The commissioner has similar powers as the RCMP. We have made him completely independent, giving him sole control of his staff in this bill, sole control of his budget and his investigations. We also give the commissioner, in this legislation, new offences to help him in his investigations.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

That's not the answer and that's not the question.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if the member would stop chirping over there, he might be interested to know that for the first time the commissioner will have powers like obstructing an investigation and providing false information as extra tools that he can use to enforce his power during his election investigations.

The hon. member should stop fearmongering, stop with this nonsense, and get on board with this legislation so we can all be proud of the results of the 2015 election process.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague about the position of the opposition parties. They stake out their ground on vouching and the argument that somehow Canadians should be able to vote without any ID whatsoever. They have fought a long and hard pitched battle on this one aspect of the bill.

As I look at the Elections Canada website, I see 39 different pieces of ID that Canadians can use to prove their identities, including library cards, credit-debit cards, liquor identification cards, student ID cards, health cards, passports, driver's licences. The list goes on. Unfortunately for the opposition parties, Canadians do not agree with them and find it quite reasonable that Canadians provide some ID to exercise their right to vote.

Could my colleague comment further on that and on what he has heard from Canadians about vouching and providing ID? Is that reasonable based on what he has heard?

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, for me to try to understand the logic or strategy behind the opposition's trying to justify the lack of providing some kind of identification when people show up to vote, the most sacred right we have as Canadian citizens, is not something I wish to attempt.

However, I want to add to the list of what we heard from the hon. member. Voters will have 39 forms of authorized ID from which to choose. It is reasonable to expect Canadians to bring ID when they cast a ballot. It is reasonable for Canadians to expect that their fellow citizens will prove who they are when the come to cast a ballot.

Maybe members of the opposition are concerned about not being able to obtain one of these 39 pieces of identification. Canadians can get them. I do not know why opposition members are having trouble getting them.

I would like to field some more questions, if possible.

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

Mr. Speaker, if he wants another question, I will throw one at him.

The member talks about voting Canadians who do not want to tell the truth and who commit fraud. Canadians know who had the problems with the in-and-out scandal 2006 election. It was the Conservative Party.

Do Conservatives think all Canadians are like the Conservative Party? They are ones who got caught, went to court, and then stopped the court until the next election. Why do we not go to court to find out who is telling the truth?

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is the most ridiculous question anybody has ever asked me in the House, but I will answer it for the hon. member.

It is unbelievable. The only party that was caught taking illegal union fees, dues and donations, and had to pay it back was the New Democratic Party. Of all the nerve, to stand here, questioning.

Here is what I believe. Canadians by a large majority, probably 99.9% of Canadians, are honest, hard-working people who are very sincere when they show up to vote on election day. We want to ensure that the other 0.1%, or whatever that number is, does not have an opportunity to perpetrate fraud on election day.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-23, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other Acts and to make consequential amendments to certain Acts, be read the third time and passed, and of the amendment.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be sharing my time with the member for Lac-Saint-Louis.

Seldom has a bill been so flawed even though it deals with one of the most fundamental aspects of our democracy: the rules governing federal elections. Bill C-23, the fair elections act, was attacked from all directions and for good reason. The government has only itself to blame for that. It consulted no one and was hostile towards anyone who did not agree with its views.

A solid democratic tradition in Canada requires the largest possible consensus for the law that sets out election rules. This time it is a complete failure. The government isolated itself. Nevertheless, in the face of relentless pressure, the government backed down and withdrew some of the worst parts of its bill.

Before this series of amendments, Bill C-23 was definitely a dangerous bill. The amendments have transformed a dangerous bill into just a bad bill. The government would have had to do more to make it a good bill, but that was certainly too much to ask.

Nevertheless, let us be thankful that one of the government's steps backwards allowed us to close the loophole that the Conservatives wanted to introduce in the control of election expenses. The first version of Bill C-23 exempted fund-raising costs from the limits on campaign expenses in the case of donors who had previously donated more than $20.

By pure coincidence, that favoured parties with long lists of donors, such as the Conservative Party. Letting money influence the result of elections in such a way would have gone against the principles of political equality and democratic fairness.

In other good news, the government gave up on adding polling station supervisors to the list of partisan appointments at polling stations. The risk of that becoming political was too flagrant. However, it is a pity that the government did not extend its mea culpa further and agree to depoliticize the entire administration of elections. They only had to follow the recommendation in the Neufeld report, which proposed choosing elections officials solely on the basis of merit and administrative neutrality, in accordance with established international election practices.

There was more partial progress, insofar as the government reconsidered, though only in part, its plan to abolish the vouching system, which protects the right to vote of Canadians without forms of identification. The vouching system allows those citizens to identify themselves under oath and to have another Canadian from the same electoral district vouch for them. This provision enables many Canadians, including students, seniors, and first nations people, to exercise their right to vote; coincidentally these groups are the least likely to vote for the Conservatives.

Whereas the first version of Bill C-23 removed any right of vouching, the new version allows voters who have proof of address to swear to the address of those who can only prove their identity, provided they live in the same polling district. That was partial progress.

However, the government has stubbornly refused to let the voter information card be recognized as a voter identification card.

Bill C-23 would still eliminate the voter identification card as identification that could be used to vote. The government failed to support Liberal amendments to restore the voter identification card, the only universal piece of federal identification to contain an address and widely used by the population.

There has been no proven fraud using voter identification cards. Removing the identification card is a solution in search of a problem. The facts on the voter identification card are clear. The data of the card is based on regular updates from driver's licence bureaus, the Canada Revenue Agency, Citizenship and Immigration Canada and various other authoritative sources.

During the election period, revision activities at the local level also increase the accuracy of the voter identification card. This likely makes it a more current document than even a driver's licence, which is authorized by law and used by the vast majority of voters.

The Chief Electoral Officer has pointed out that seniors who live in long-term care facilities, and who vote on-site and do not have proper ID or utility bills, rely heavily on voter identification cards to vote. Elimination of the voter identification card would disenfranchise many Canadian seniors.

Now I would like to talk about how this bill infringes on the Chief Electoral Officer's freedom of speech. The government barely budged on this.

While the government would allow the Chief Electoral Officer to continue public education and information programs to students at primary and secondary levels, the government would still severely limit how the Chief Electoral Officer and Elections Canada could communicate with Canadians. The Chief Electoral Officer would be specifically limited to speaking publicly only about where, when, and how to vote.

Elections Canada will no longer have the right to run campaigns that encourage people to vote nor will it have the right to publish research papers on the electoral process. Canada will be the only democracy to impose that type of gag order on its electoral agency.

It is an odd situation. Elections Canada will be able to encourage voter turnout among children and teens, but not adults. It will be able to encourage voter participation among those who are too young to vote, but not among those who can actually vote.

Does that make any sense? I would be surprised if it does because this government does not make sense to Canadians.

On the topic of voter fraud, the government stubbornly refused to include in its bill the main recommendation put forward by the Chief Electoral Officer and the Commissioner of Canada Elections, namely, that the commissioner 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 Conservatives failed to support a Liberal amendment to finally give the Commissioner of Canada Elections the power he desperately needs to enforce the Canada Elections Act; that is the power to ask a judge to compel witnesses to testify. The commissioner has stated that this would force him to abandon election fraud investigations.

Are the Conservatives not willing to give the commissioner the power to compel witness co-operation because they are afraid of what this might reveal about the source of the fraudulent election calls and who may have used the Conservative database to deny Canadians their right to vote during the 2011 election?

The question the minister failed to answer is the following. 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 or the power already held by several provincial chief electoral officers or commissioners? This includes New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta, and Yukon. Internationally, other electoral management bodies have this power. These include the Australian Electoral Commission and the Federal Election Commission in the United States.

To conclude, if the minister stubbornly refuses to include that honest, common-sense measure in his bill, the Liberals and our leader are committed to adding this provision to the elections law when Canadians vote in a Liberal government.

In the meantime, Parliament should say no to this unfair elections bill.