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.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-23, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other Acts and to make consequential amendments to certain Acts, as reported with amendment from the committee.

Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

There are 145 motions in amendment standing on the notice paper for the report stage of C-23.

Motions Nos. 55, 58, 60, 63, 86, 87, 90, 92 to 95 and 100 will not be selected by the Chair because they were defeated in committee.

All remaining motions have been examined and the Chair is satisfied that they meet the guidelines expressed in the note in Standing Order 76.1(5) regarding the selection of motions in amendment at the report stage.

Motions Nos. 1 to 54, 56, 57, 61, 62, 64 to 85, 88, 89, 91, 96 to 99, and 101 to 145 will be grouped for debate and voted upon according to the voting pattern available at the table.

I will now put Motions Nos. 1 to 54, 56, 57, 61, 62, 64 to 85, 88, 89, 91, 96 to 99 and 101 to 145 to the House.

Before I do so, it is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra, Infrastructure; the hon. member for Malpeque, National Defence.

Motions in Amendment

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 1.

Motion No. 2

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 2.

Motion No. 3

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 3.

Motion No. 4

That Bill C-23, in Clause 3, be amended by replacing line 17 on page 5 with the following:

“(2) The mandate of the Chief Electoral Officer is renewable once only; however, a person who has served as Chief”

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

moved:

Motion No. 5

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 4.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

moved:

Motion No. 6

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 5.

Motion No. 7

That Bill C-23, in Clause 5, be amended

(a) by replacing line 6 on page 6 with the following:

“Chief Electoral Officer within 20 days after the”

(b) by replacing line 20 on page 6 with the following:

“subsection (5) within 65 days after the day on”

(c) by replacing line 22 on page 6 with the following:

“65-day period coincides or overlaps with the”

(d) by replacing line 25 on page 6 with the following:

“65 days after polling day for that election.”

Motion No. 8

That Bill C-23, in Clause 5, be amended

(a) by replacing line 11 on page 7 with the following:

“Chief Electoral Officer within 20 days after the”

(b) by replacing line 16 on page 7 with the following:

“(4) Within 65 days after the day on which the”

(c) by replacing line 21 on page 7 with the following:

“expiry of that period. However, if the 65-day”

(d) by replacing line 24 on page 7 with the following:

“notice shall be published no later than 65 days”

Motion No. 9

That Bill C-23, in Clause 5.1, be amended by replacing line 35 on page 8 with the following:

“under this Act, including information relating to the commission of an offence against a law of Canada or a province by an individual if, in the Chief Electoral Officer’s opinion, there is evidence of such an offence.”

Motion No. 10

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 6.

Motion No. 11

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 7.

Motion No. 12

That Bill C-23, in Clause 7, be amended by adding after line 22 on page 9 the following:

“(2) The Advisory Committee of Political Parties, established pursuant to subsection 21.1(1), shall provide the Chief Electoral Officer with its opinion on the impact of this section within two years after the first general election held after the coming into force of this section.”

Motion No. 13

That Bill C-23, in Clause 7, be amended by replacing line 22 on page 9 with the following:

“levels or to any targeted groups.”

Motion No. 14

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 8.

Motion No. 15

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 10.

Motion No. 16

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 18.

Motion No. 17

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 19.

Motion No. 18

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 20.

Motion No. 19

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 21.

Motion No. 20

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 22.

Motion No. 21

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 25.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

moved:

Motion No. 22

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 26.

Motion No. 23

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 30.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

moved:

Motion No. 24

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 31.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

moved:

Motion No. 25

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 32.

Motion No. 26

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 37.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

moved:

Motion No. 27

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 39.

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

moved:

Motion No. 28

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 41.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

moved:

Motion No. 29

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 43.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

moved:

Motion No. 30

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 48.

Motion No. 31

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 49.

Motion No. 32

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 52.

Motion No. 33

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 53.

Motion No. 34

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 54.

Motion No. 35

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 56.

Motion No. 36

That Bill C-23, in Clause 56, be amended by deleting line 9 on page 32.

Motion No. 37

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 57.

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

moved:

Motion No. 38

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 58.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

moved:

Motion No. 39

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 59.

Motion No. 40

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 62.

Motion No. 41

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 64.

Motion No. 42

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 67.

Motion No. 43

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 67.1.

Motion No. 44

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 69.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

moved:

Motion No. 45

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 73.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

moved:

Motion No. 46

That Bill C-23, in Clause 77, be amended by replacing line 11 on page 49 with the following:

“years after the end of the election period, and provide to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission,”

Motion No. 47

That Bill C-23, in Clause 77, be amended by adding after line 20 on page 49 the following:

“348.161 For the purposes of determining the period of time during which each script is to be kept in accordance with section 348.16, the three-year period starts from the last time that the same or substantially similar script is used by the same caller.”

Motion No. 48

That Bill C-23, in Clause 77, be amended by adding after line 20 on page 49 the following:

“348.161 For greater certainty, the requirement referred to in section 348.16 to keep the scripts and recordings described in that section for three years does not preclude the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission from establishing a system of voluntary commitments for calling service providers in which they pledge to keep scripts and recordings for periods longer than three years.”

Motion No. 49

That Bill C-23 be amended by adding after line 27 on page 51 the following:

“351.11 No third party that failed to register shall incur election advertising expenses of a total amount of $500 or more.”

Motion No. 50

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 80.

Motion No. 51

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 81.

Motion No. 52

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 82.

Motion No. 53

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 83.

Motion No. 54

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 84.

Motion No. 56

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 85.

Motion No. 57

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 86.

Motion No. 61

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 87.

Motion No. 62

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 88.

Motion No. 64

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 89.

Motion No. 65

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 90.

Motion No. 66

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 91.

Motion No. 67

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 92.

Motion No. 68

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 93.

Motion No. 69

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 94.

Motion No. 70

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 94.1.

Motion No. 71

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 95.

Motion No. 72

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 96.

Motion No. 73

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 97.

Motion No. 74

That Bill C-23, in Clause 97, be amended

(a) by replacing line 30 on page 195 with the following:

“(a.1) section 351.1 (registered and non-registered foreign third party ex-”

(b) by replacing line 4 on page 196 with the following:

“(a.1) section 351.1 (registered and non-registered foreign third party ex-”

Motion No. 75

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 98.

Motion No. 76

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 99.

Motion No. 77

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 100.

Motion No. 78

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 101.

Motion No. 79

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 102.

Motion No. 80

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 103.

Motion No. 81

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 104.

Motion No. 82

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 105.

Motion No. 83

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 106.

Motion No. 84

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 107.

Motion No. 85

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 108.

Motion No. 88

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 109.

Motion No. 89

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 110.

Motion No. 91

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 111.

Motion No. 96

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 112.

Motion No. 97

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 113.

Motion No. 98

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 114.

Motion No. 99

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 115.

Motion No. 101

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 116.

Motion No. 102

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 117.

Motion No. 103

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 118.

Motion No. 104

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 119.

Motion No. 105

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 120.

Motion No. 106

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 121.

Motion No. 107

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 122.

Motion No. 108

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 123.

Motion No. 109

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 124.

Motion No. 110

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 125.

Motion No. 111

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 126.

Motion No. 112

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 127.

Motion No. 113

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 128.

Motion No. 114

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 129.

Motion No. 115

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 130.

Motion No. 116

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 131.

Motion No. 117

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 132.

Motion No. 118

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 133.

Motion No. 119

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 134.

Motion No. 120

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 135.

Motion No. 121

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 136.

Motion No. 122

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 137.

Motion No. 123

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 138.

Motion No. 124

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 139.

Motion No. 125

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 140.

Motion No. 126

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 141.

Motion No. 127

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 142.

Motion No. 128

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 143.

Motion No. 129

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 144.

Motion No. 130

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 145.

Motion No. 131

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 146.

Motion No. 132

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 147.

Motion No. 133

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 148.

Motion No. 134

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 149.

Motion No. 135

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 150.

Motion No. 136

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 151.

Motion No. 137

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 152.

Motion No. 138

That Bill C-23, in Clause 152, be amended by adding after line 11 on page 242 the following:

“(1.2) The report shall also include any concerns regarding the powers granted to the Commissioner by the Canada Elections Act.”

Motion No. 139

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 153.

Motion No. 140

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 154.

Motion No. 141

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 155.

Motion No. 142

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 156.

Motion No. 143

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 157.

Motion No. 144

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Clause 158.

Motion No. 145

That Bill C-23 be amended by deleting Schedule 1.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are at report stage on Bill C-23, and it has been a long odyssey to this point; one of considerable resistance to the bill on the part of the official opposition; many sectors of Canadian society, including organizations who have engaged in the fight, academics and so on; and also, we suspect, considerable pushback from some Conservatives who themselves felt the pressure from the opposition and civil society.

It is worth recapping how we came to be where we are at.

In March 2012, the NDP tabled a motion, which then received unanimous support from everybody in the House, to call on the government to table within six months—that is, by September 2012—a bill that would address the issue of prevention of prosecution of fraudulent election calls and also add to the powers of Elections Canada, including the power of the Chief Electoral Officer to require receipts and documentation for national parties' election expenses, which, believe it or not, currently the Chief Electoral Officer does not have access to.

Well, six months later, by September 2012, a bill with that sort of focus to clearly deal with this kind of fraud and the need to enhance the powers of Elections Canada to investigate had never appeared.

By October, it was clear the government was not dealing with the priority it had promised to deal with in voting for the motion in March 2012, and so I tabled a private member's bill with a proposed, and I would say very minimal, system of voter contact registry to deal with fraudulent election calls, as well as a couple of provisions that also went to beefing up the penalties for that kind of fraud.

I told the minister at the time, which is prior to the current minister, that this was effectively to just prod the government and also help it to begin thinking about this issue, because it was clearly having trouble meeting its deadline. I said that I was available to consult as needed and also that I expected that the government, with its resources, it would be able to come up with an even more effective system.

Well, by April 2013, we still had not seen a bill, despite any number of times I stood in this House and asked when we might.

Suddenly the former minister announced to all, in a highly organized press conference on a Tuesday in April, that he would be tabling the missing bill two days later, on a Thursday. The next day we heard rumours, which were confirmed on that Thursday, that this announced bill would not be tabled after all. We will never know exactly what revolt occurred in the Conservative caucus to lead to that result, but we do know that there was a revolt, and the then-minister was replaced with the current minister shortly thereafter.

We had to wait almost a full year after that event, to March of this year, for the bill to finally be tabled, two years after the March 2012 motion when the government had agreed that it would be tabling a bill within six months and 18 months after that deadline passed.

All that time was spent coming up with a bill that we have dubbed “the unfair elections act”, which explains why the first motion at this report stage is to delete the title of the bill, which the government has called “the fair elections act”. We can think of no more Orwellian a title. The government has come close to titles that were equally unrepresentative of the actual contents of bills in the past, but this one, frankly, takes the cake.

The fact of the matter is that the bill was tabled and within 18 hours, as the critic for democratic reform, I had to be on my feet, having read, analyzed, and formed first views on a 242-page bill to reply to the minister at the start of second reading.

Within very short order, the House leader was on his feet and gave notice of time allocation; time allocation came very quickly thereafter, and very little debate on second reading was permitted.

We then went into the committee stage, where there was an effort on the part of the official opposition, the NDP, to convince the procedure and House affairs committee to allow for hearings across the country in order to hear what Canadians thought. My colleague from Hamilton Centre put on a strong filibuster in order to convey to the government how serious we were about this, but ultimately, after 10 hours, he had to concede that the arguments had not penetrated the brick wall.

We went on in committee to have 71 witnesses, only one of whom was completely in support of the bill. It was one out of 71. Most of the others were critical of large swaths of the bill, and where they were focusing only on one or two things, they were extremely critical of what it would do. They included the Chief Electoral Officer, the Commissioner of Canada Elections, the previous chief electoral officer and commissioner, the former auditor general, and indeed Preston Manning, and the list goes on.

Then we found ourselves in a clause-by-clause process that ended up having an artificial end date. We had 10 hours of clause by clause, and by the time the guillotine came down at five o'clock last Thursday, we had gotten through only one-fifth of the 242 pages in the bill, one-half of the bill in terms of the clauses, and only half of the opposition amendments. In terms of the amendments that had actually been debated and, after clause-by-clause study, voted on, not a single official opposition amendment was voted in favour of by the government. This was a total farce of a process.

We looked, in a constructive spirit, at the government amendments, voted for those that made sense, tried to amend as it made sense, came up with some proposals that we thought were absolutely impeccable from the government's perspective, and the Conservative members still decided not to vote with us.

For example, when it was clear that the government was not going to allow the Chief Electoral Officer to authorize the use of voter information cards as a second piece of identification, when it was clear that we had lost that fight, we tabled an amendment simply saying that the Chief Electoral Officer had to ensure that the voter information cards were prominently marked with a message to say that this card cannot be used for purposes of identification on voting day, something that was designed to prevent chaos that might occur in 2015 because of the hundreds of thousands who were able to use VICs in 2011. It was the simplest of amendments and the most constructive of amendments.

The government had an entire night to reflect on it, because the amendment was moved at two minutes before closing hour the day before. The government members took overnight, came back, and said they were sorry, they could not vote for that. This was the atmosphere that we worked in.

It has to be said that the efforts of the official opposition and civil society resistance produced some major accomplishments in terms of the government standing down. The fundraising exception that was criticized across the country was removed. The central poll supervisor provision that would allow the first place party in the last election to appoint central poll supervisors was also removed.

Vouching for addresses was restored in the bill because of the pressure that we put on. Retention of documents—some documents, in any case—under the voter contact registry went from one year to three years. Public education by Elections Canada was now permitted for students in schools, even though for everybody else it remains prohibited, and we at least got on record, although the government refused to put this in text in the amendments, that the Chief Electoral Officer will be permitted to communicate freely on any subject that he wishes.

These are major accomplishments, and everyone in Canadian society who pushed back with this effort to resist this attack on our democracy, as Sheila Fraser called it, deserves credit for that.

Nonetheless, the remaining issues in the bill are huge. The bill is much worse than the current Canada Elections Act. For that reason, we will be voting against the bill and seeking, as much as possible, to move at report stage the few remaining amendments that are available to us as the official opposition.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I know I will be afforded the opportunity to speak to the bill very shortly, but I wanted to get on the record as quickly as possible on the whole issue of process.

It is really important that we recognize that the bill is nothing more than a Conservative piece of legislation for which there is no evidence of any form of genuine consultation beyond members of the Conservative caucus, and from what I understand, not even all members of the Conservative caucus were involved. It is in essence being pushed out, from my best guess, from the Prime Minister's Office.

The Conservatives call it the fair elections act, but it is far from fair. Given the importance of the legislation and democracy here in Canada, would the hon. member not agree that when we change an election law it should be based on consensus and that professional advice should have been sought from organizations such as Elections Canada?

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would actually like to decline to answer a question on the fairness of democratic process from that member, considering the role the Liberal Party is currently playing in completely undermining all fair process in the Board of Internal Economy and the procedure and House affairs committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, as time ticks down, this may be my only chance to speak to the bill at report stage.

I want to thank the hon. member for Toronto—Danforth and the official opposition for standing so clearly with the rights of smaller parties and independents and our ability to speak at report stage and submit substantive amendments when those rights were not respected in the committee process, through no fault of our own.

My question for the member is this: as parliamentarians who love this place and love Westminster parliamentary democracy, what can we do as we watch it consistently reduced, stomped upon, abused, and held in contempt? At what point do we find our way to drive the point home that we are losing democracy in our country?

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I share and appreciate the passion of the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands on this point. Over the next year, it is incumbent on all of us not to allow the Canadian public to forget what the bill is all about and what the struggle to at least make it less terrible than it was when it started was all about.

Indeed, we cannot afford to have another government in power that acts the way this government does. Apart from reminding Canadians of what the vote will mean in 2015, Canadians also have to join with the NDP and the Green Party in making sure we change the electoral system to a system that embraces proportional representation so that this kind of government, elected with less than 40% of the vote but with more than 50% of the seats, can never again do what it is doing to this institution.

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

Mr. Speaker, I really want to thank my colleague who is working very hard on this file.

I had the opportunity to study the bill with him in committee. I would like him to provide a brief overview of everything that is still missing in this bill. For example, we did not have the time in committee to debate clauses and amendments concerning all the different things that will affect the Commissioner of Canada Elections, who investigates electoral fraud. There are a number of things missing with respect to the commissioner's powers.

Could he tell us about that and the different things that are still missing from this bill, which make it unacceptable at present for our Parliament?

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, whose work I deeply appreciate and with whom it is always a pleasure to work. I will answer in English in order to make this as specific as possible.

It is indeed the case that the Commissioner of Canada Elections is transferred over to the Attorney General's office under the Director of Public Prosecutions. We had no chance to debate that. We had no chance to debate the issue that the Commissioner of Canada Elections would now be dismissible, for cause, by the Director of Public Prosecutions.

The fact that the voter information cards remain banned is something that we did not succeed on. The fact that the Chief Electoral Officer cannot have access to party receipts for campaigns and the situation with judicial orders to compel witnesses to co-operate in investigations were also not changed.

As well, public education broadly, beyond students and schools, remains banned, and audio recordings, audio scripts, and phone numbers not only do not have to be conveyed to the CRTC but do not even have to be kept.

These are just a few of the problems that remain in the bill.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Before we resume debate, I see the hon. government House leader is rising on a point.

Bill C-23--Notice of Time Allocation Motion

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, after committee filibusters, points of order, today's spectacle of slow voting and, of course, 145 report stage amendments being presented, it is not surprising that I must advise that an agreement has not been reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) concerning the proceedings at report stage and third reading of Bill C-23, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other acts and to make consequential amendments to certain acts. Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at those stages.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The House appreciates such notice.

I will let the hon. member for Winnipeg North know that we have approximately eight minutes remaining in the time for government orders this afternoon. Of course, he will have whatever he does not use of his remaining time when the House next resumes debate on the question.

The hon. member for Winnipeg North.

Report Stage

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is most interesting that the government House leader chooses this time to stand in his place, when we just get back for report stage a bill that would make fundamental changes to our election laws, to invoke closure, notice of time allocation, which is closure. It is shameful the way the government has used time allocation to get through its legislative agenda. It is time allocation that takes away the ability of members of Parliament to provide due diligence and provide opinions on important legislation.

It is not that it is offending individuals such as myself as much as it is Canadians as a whole. I have a responsibility to represent thousands of people in Winnipeg North, and collectively, we represent Canadians all across this land. We are charged with the responsibility to stand in our place and debate legislation. This government, more than any other government in the history of Canada, has used time allocation as a way to prevent members of Parliament from standing in their places to deal with important legislation.

Ironically, this afternoon we are talking about election laws. That is one of the fundamental pillars of our society. Democracy, freedom, rule of law, all of these are very important. In a couple of days we will be paying tribute to our veterans. Why do they go abroad, whether it is World War II, or World War I, or Korea or Afghanistan on peace missions and so forth, and why do we request our military personnel, both today and in the past, to do this? It is to defend our beliefs. Our fundamental freedoms and democracy are important to Canada, to all Canadians.

This is important legislation and the government continues to use its Conservative majority to abuse rights and thereby Canadians in the passage of this legislation. The legislation is fundamentally flawed and should not be passed. The government failed to recognize the need for change.

The government has ignored the advice of Elections Canada's Chief Electoral Officer, former CEOs. In committee we had presentations from individuals like Sheila Fraser. For the first time ever, we had letters that had been signed by 100-plus political scientists from coast to coast to coast in regard to the way in which the government was changing our election laws. It is wrong.

There is a need for the government, when it changes an election law, to build on a consensus, not the tyranny of a majority to force changes to election laws to fit its needs. That is what we see today a continuation of an abusive majority government that does not recognize the important role we have inside the House of Commons to ensure that the laws we pass are done in due course.

This law does nothing to give the strength, in which Elections Canada and the commissioner wanted, to address the issues that Canadians want addressed. I am referring specifically to the ability to compel witnesses. We have been arguing for this, but more important, Canadians, the Chief Electoral Officer and the Commissioner for Elections Canada want the ability to compel witnesses. It is not something completely unique in federal departments.

More important, from my perspective, there are some provincial entities in Canada of an equivalent nature. Elections Manitoba, for example, already has the ability to compel. Why is the ability to compel so critically important? Just take a look at 2011, whether it is the robocalling, the over-expenditures, thousands of inquiries were made from Canadians from all across this land about issues related to the last federal election.

We need to do what we can to restore public confidence in our election laws at a time when there is a great need to build public confidence based on the last election and the cheating and voter suppression that took place. The way in which to do that is to bring in a law that will have some teeth.

I was there when the Chief Electoral Officer and the commissioner made their presentations. Canada's election law is getting weaker as a result of the government's failure to address that need in itself.

We have challenged the government to allow for a free vote inside the House of Commons on this bill. We want a free vote on this because we believe that ultimately there might be some Conservatives who believe in democracy more so than the Conservative Party and the attitude in which the government has had toward our election laws. We wanted our committee to travel across Canada to different regions, and the government shut that down.

The government did not want to go through a genuine debate on amendments. That is why it put in a deadline of May 1, when we saw amendment after amendment being voted on without discussion or debate because the Conservative majority used its majority to prevent that debate from occurring. There was not one amendment that the government passed that was in opposition, unless we take into consideration that it had the same amendment and it was only because the opposition beat it in its submission of it, so it made it a higher priority. The government did not make the amendments that were necessary to make the bill in the best interest of Canada overall.

The government needs to recognize that we have to do more than just change laws based on time allocation and understand and appreciate that there is a process. The Conservative majority government has been abusing its authority in a number of ways. I would suggest that very few are as offensive as what we have before us today. We have a majority government that, without any consensus or genuine consultation, brought in legislation that would change the rules in the next federal election and has failed in building any sort of support.

Everyone who came before committee expressed concern and acknowledged the need for change. Because the government did a bit of tweaking here and there does not justify the disenfranchising that has taken place, the division and the taking out of Elections Canada the Office of the Commissioner, the inability to compel the witnesses, the silencing of Elections Canada—

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Order, please. We have allowed the hon. member for Winnipeg North to finish through his full 10 minutes. However, he will have five minutes for questions and comments when the House next returns to business, should he wish it.

The House resumed from May 7 consideration of Bill C-23, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other Acts and to make consequential amendments to certain Acts, as reported (with amendments) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

Fair Elections Act

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

When this matter was last before the House, the hon. member for Winnipeg North had completed his remarks but had not yet begun his questions and comments, so we will do those five minutes of questions and comments now.

The hon. member for Malpeque.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, great remarks they were by the member for Winnipeg North outlining fairly strong criticism of Bill C-23, misnamed the fair elections act. It is the foundation, really, of how we elect people in our country. It is a bill that really should be opposed.

I have two questions for the member. Would he explain the importance of having a free vote on Bill C-23? That has been talked about by quite a number of players, and I wonder if he could expand on that. Could he also expand on the government's decision not to compel witnesses? That will certainly impact the ability of Elections Canada to do its job.

If he could answer those two questions, it would be helpful.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I like the way the member said that it is misnamed. It is not the fair elections act. Bill C-23 is far from that. One has only to look at the process by which the bill has come before us, whether it was the conception of the idea; no consultation with the many different stakeholders; the manner in which it was introduced in the House, where there was again no consultation; time allocation at second reading; or committee stage, where there were numerous amendments made that were never addressed in full because of time allocation or restrictions that saw many of the amendments voted on but never commented on. Here we are today, where again, time allocation has been brought forward.

We change one of the pillars of our democracy when we change laws. The government did not work with opposition parties or with Elections Canada, a true independent organization. Rather, it has forced the bill through.

We are calling for the Prime Minister, at the very least, to allow a free vote in the House on this issue, believing that parliamentarians will put democracy ahead of their own party's interests on this issue. It is an appeal to have a free vote.

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

Mr. Speaker, it certainly is a significant moment in the House of Commons when the Conservative majority has accepted and proposed its own amendments in the face of massive opposition from quarters that usually support it, like serial editorials inThe Globe and Mail and Conservative senators. Even the former auditor general, Sheila Fraser, weighed in on bill at first reading, saying the bill was “attack on...democracy”.

In the member's view, with the amendments the Conservatives have now put forward, does he agree with me that while it is a less awful bill, it is still not a good bill?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, absolutely. That was well put. It is important we recognize that there was an incredible amount of opposition to the legislation and the manner in which the government brought it forward and attempted to pass it through the system. The way in which the government has treated our elections law is incredible.

As has been pointed out, I would suggest that even with the changes that have made, the legislation still has fundamental flaws. The most significant one is that it has not brought forward the ability to allow Elections Canada or the Commissioner of Canada Elections to compel witnesses. That is a serious flaw. Without that change, how can we possibly support the legislation?

The reason the public wanted to see the election law changed in the first place was to deal with issues that came from the last federal election. Without the ability to compel witnesses, even if we pass the bill as it is today, the election law will be weaker than what it was prior to its introduction. Elections Canada and the commissioner have recognized that point.

Therefore, I would plead with the Prime Minister to have a free vote and then I ask all Conservative members to balance it and vote against the legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in report stage to speak, initially, to my two amendments. I had hoped to have substantive amendments at report stage, but members will recall that the committee was allowed to violate its own rules by rejecting my right to speak to my amendments as they were all gavelled through, all being rejected.

I want to express thanks to the minister for being willing to listen to the extraordinary course of denunciation for Bill C-23 at first reading. Unfortunately, even with the number of government amendments that were accepted at committee, the bill falls far short of being what is required to go by the name of a “fair elections act”.

Briefly speaking to the amendments I put forward at committee, which were defeated, it is a shame that we missed the opportunity to open a discussion on getting rid of first past the post and moving to proportional representation. I think most Canadians would be shocked to find that the leaders' debates are not controlled by anybody, and that the opportunity to create a fair system, as presented at committee by Democracy Watch, was not supported by any party other than the Green Party.

On the requirements for people to bring so many different kinds of ID, we still do not have the kind of system that is as reliable as the election system before the Conservatives' first round of amendments back in 2006. I wish we had ensured non-partisan poll workers.

There were numerous amendments from the Liberals, the New Democrats and the Greens on many of these points, for fairer financing and to take steps to increase voter turnout. I also put forward an amendment in the committee to shift the day of advanced polling from a Sunday. I will try again with the amendments I have before you, Mr. Speaker.

All the amendments from any opposition party were defeated at committee, with one exception, which was one when the Conservative leader on the committee pointed out that the Conservatives had been prepared to do that themselves had they had the chance.

My two amendments would do one thing, which would be fantastic, and that would be to remove the name of the political party from the ballot next to the name of the candidate. This would do a lot to reduce the excessive control of political parties over the electoral process. We used to have elections with just the name of the candidate, right up until about 1970.

I want to devote the rest of my time this morning to why we had the demand for a fair elections act, and how this bill falls far short. The initial attempt, and this was mentioned by other members in this place, the initial cry for reform of our electoral process, was in response to efforts at electoral fraud.

The amendments I put forward at committee, among those of Liberals and the New Democrats as well, called for giving Elections Canada the investigative tools it needed, such as subpoena powers, the ability to look into efforts, or deliberate efforts or actually successful efforts, at voter fraud and electoral interference that changed the course of elections. These amendments were defeated.

People have been very quick to assume that the so-called robocalls affair is now settled and nothing untoward took place there. Because the bill remains inadequate to the task of investigating electoral fraud, we can continue to have events like the 2011 robocall scandal without the tools of Elections Canada to respond.

In the time I have remaining, I want to ensure that it is understood we have not once, not twice, but three times seen quite scandalous interference in our electoral process, that if we had heard of these stories from some third world country, with some kind of tinpot dictatorship that ran fake elections, we would just shake our heads and say, “I guess that is how it happens in other countries”.

The first example was the 2005-06 election, when we had the deliberate interference in the election by our state police, the RCMP. We never got to the bottom of why Commissioner Zaccardelli broke all RCMP protocol and issued a press release during that election. According to a finding of fact by the Commission for Public Complaints against the RCMP, Paul Kennedy, the interference of the RCMP both violated its normal procedures and changed the course of the 2006 election. We had no investigation because there were no subpoena powers to call Mr. Zaccardelli to explain himself.

Second, we had an event that took place in Saanich—Gulf Islands in the 2008 election. I was not personally involved, but it was very clear, and there were multiple complaints to Elections Canada and the RCMP, that a robocall effort targeting NDP voters changed the course of that election and allowed a Conservative to be re-elected when all evidence suggested that he would not have been.

The Liberal candidate was neck in neck with the Conservatives. There was no NDP candidate on the ballot as he had withdrawn. An election eve round of phone calls went out spoofed as though they were from the NDP. The spoofing term is one I have learned. It is the technical term for using the home fax number, as it turned out, of an NDP volunteer to make it appear the calls originated from the NDP, urging people to get out and vote for a candidate who was no longer capable of election because he had withdrawn from the race. That changed the course of the election. Elections Canada was asked to investigate, but basically threw its hands up and said that it could not find anything, that there was nothing to see, so we should move on.

If members detect in my presentation that I am critical of the failure of Elections Canada and the RCMP to get to the bottom of that, everyone can bet I am critical. They utterly failed to defend the integrity of the election process in Saanich—Gulf Islands in 2008, and they did it again in 2011 with the robocall scandal. Thank goodness, The Council of Canadians took the matter to court. Other than Federal Court judge Mr. Justice Mosley, we would not have somebody as a finder of fact going over all the evidence and giving us clear foundational information of what occurred. Right now, the Commissioner of Canada Elections, Mr. Yves Côté, in his report of last month, once again told us that there was nothing to see, so we should move on.

Let me review what Mr. Justice Mosley found, because it is important to put it on the record to understand why this bill is so inadequate and why it should have the powers of investigation to ensure that crimes like this are properly investigated. Mr. Justice Mosley found as fact that “...there was a deliberate attempt at voter suppression during the 2011 election”. That was at paragraph 177.

At paragraph 224, he wrote:

I am satisfied that it has been established that misleading calls about the locations of polling stations were made to electors in ridings across the country, including the subject ridings, and that the purpose of those calls was to suppress the votes of electors who had indicated their voting preference in response to earlier voter identification calls.

At paragraph 246, he stated, “I find that the threshold to establish that fraud occurred has been met...”.

At paragraph 253, he said:

...I don’t doubt that the confidence rightfully held by Canadians has been shaken by the disclosures of widespread fraudulent activities that have resulted from the Commissioner’s investigations and the complaints to Elections Canada.

As well, he stated at paragraph 256:

...[the...] calls appear to have been targeted towards voters who had previously expressed a preference for an opposition party (or anyone other than the government party)...

On the matter of a smoking gun and who is responsible, essentially in this case we have a smoking gun. We know that thousands of calls were made, including in my own riding and across the country. I wrote Elections Canada with my concerns about these widespread attempts at voter suppression immediately following the May 2011 election. Who was responsible? I have made no accusations as to who I believe is responsible, but Mr. Justice Mosley found as fact the following, at paragraph 245:

I am satisfied...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, accessed for that purpose by a person or persons currently unknown to this Court....the evidence points to elaborate efforts to conceal the identity of those accessing the database and arranging for the calls to be made...

What kind of democracy is this? We have the evidence of a Federal Court judge, thousands of complaints from Canadians across the country, a Commissioner of Canada Elections who says that there is nothing to look at here and everyone should move on, and we have a bill before us that would do absolutely nothing to prevent the illegitimate use of robocalls in future elections.

I concede to the minister and support the part of the bill that sets up a robocalls registry within the CRTC, but it is not sufficient to deal with the illegitimate use of robocalls and to protect Canadians, Canadian democracy and the integrity of our electoral process. This bill falls far short. This is a dark day for democracy.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, would the member care to comment on the happenings in the committee that was reviewing the bill?

The member proposed that we have a study on proportional representation, but the Liberals voted against it in committee in a recorded vote. We, of course, supported the motion that we should include a study of proportional representation in the bill. Would she comment on the Liberal rejection of this notion?

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

Mr. Speaker, yes, I was disappointed. It was a very modest proposal that we open discussion toward proportional representation, which was not supported by the Liberals. I have to say that I was also very disappointed—although the hon. member for Toronto—Danforth did put forward an explanation that was somewhat persuasive as to why his party would not support my amendment—that no one supported my amendment to have some rules to ensure fairness in the leaders debate. I was not without my disappointments throughout the committee process.

I think we need to continue to work to get rid of the perverse first past the post voting system. I commend the NDP for its strong position on that, but I think we need to persuade more Liberal and Conservative members. Within both of those parties, I know there are many members who find the current system quite perverse and would like to see real reform.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the remarks of the leader of the Green Party. I think she hit the nail on the head with her last comment, “This is a dark day for democracy”, in terms of the possible passage of Bill C-23.

The member outlined a number of examples in her remarks, and I would add to that with two areas that the Conservative government has undermined. Canada at one time was seen as a model to strive for in terms of how we held elections, Elections Canada, and so on. The same thing with Statistics Canada; we used to be seen as one of the best in the world, but under the current government, we are seen as one of the worst.

I have two questions for the member. One, given how seriously Bill C-23 undermines our ability to police elections and investigate foul play, does it make it possible for a government to either buy or steal an election? Two, should we be calling for United Nations observers in Canada for the next election?

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

Mr. Speaker, I am going to assume the last part of the question from hon. member for Malpeque was somewhat ironic and so I will address the first part, which is: should we be concerned?

I believe based on everything I have studied, and I have really dug into what happened in Saanich—Gulf Islands in 2008, that it was a pilot project in seeing whether the use of robocalls could change the course of an election. Elections Canada and the RCMP failed to get to the bottom of it. Some of the complainants told me that the RCMP told them that it could not figure out who was responsible because the phone number originated from the United States.

Had that been a child pornographer or a human trafficking ring, I would like to think that we would have investigated who originated those phone calls. The idea that because they originated from the U.S. we could not find out, or that it was really small potatoes whether it was Gary Lunn or Briony Penn who won that election, is not the case. It is very large indeed in Canadian democracy when a fraudulent robocall marketing attempt can change the course of an election.

I believe that the failure to investigate Saanich—Gulf Islands in 2008 led directly to a more widespread use of robocalls in voter suppression in 2011. I shudder to think what the failure to properly investigate what happened in 2011 will mean for future Canadian elections.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to rise today in support of the fair elections act, a bill that would keep democracy in the hands of everyday Canadians by putting special interests on the sidelines and rule breakers out of business. It would be easier to vote and harder to break election laws. It would close loopholes to big money in the political process. It would make the rules easier to follow for honest participants in democracy and more difficult to break for those who would undermine the system.

Let us review the measures that are contained in the fair elections act. However, before we do, I am gratified by the great support this bill has received from the beginning from across the country. Polling data indicated that even before our government announced its willingness to amend some of its measures, Canadian people overwhelmingly supported the contents of this legislation.

Let me start with the section that has garnered the most public support, and that is the government's decision to protect our system against voter fraud by ensuring that every single voter who casts a ballot uses ID to do so.

Previously, it was possible for people to walk in to vote at their local polling station and, without presenting a single piece of ID, identify themselves through a process called “vouching” and cast their ballot. Under the fair elections act, that would not longer be possible. All voters, regardless of whether they have someone vouching for them, would be required to produce identification demonstrating who they are. If that identification does not have an address on it, as increasingly ID lacks, the voters would be able to co-sign an oath with another elector as to where they live. That being said, after the election is done, Elections Canada would be required to compile a list of all oath-takers to check for duplicates in order to find out if somebody voted more than once through this process. There would be a mandatory external audit that would be required by law to ensure that Elections Canada follows all of these steps as they are laid out in the legislation.

The unreliable and often inaccurate voter information card would no longer be acceptable as a form of ID. In the last election, the cards had errors in about one in six cases. That meant that millions of Canadians either got the wrong card, no card, more than one card, or a card with false information contained on it. Allowing people to use false cards of this kind for identification presents obvious risks of abuse. The information card would be returned to its original purpose, which is to provide people with information on where to cast their ballot rather than as a means to identify the person and his or her residence.

Elections Canada would have an opportunity with this bill to focus its attention on its core mandate; that is to say, running free and fair elections. The bill would remove from the scope of the agency's mandate those things that are not really core functions of an election agency. For example, investigations of alleged breaches of the act would no longer be within the scope of Elections Canada's mandate. The investigator would become independent, and would serve in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. That might bring back memories because prior to 2005 the investigator and the prosecutor were not only in the same office, they were the same person. That process worked reasonably well, but the missing ingredient all along has been independence. The fair elections act would ensure that the investigator is completely independent; that is, independent from the elected government, independent from political parties, and independent from Elections Canada.

In other words, all the actors who could potentially be investigated for allegations of wrongdoing under the act would be explicitly removed from any involvement in the office of the investigator.

Not only would the investigator have the power to choose his or her own staff, direct his or her own investigations, and serve for a fixed term without being fired without cause, he or she would also be guaranteed that the office would not be occupied by former employees of parties or Elections Canada. This independence would help ensure a high standard of integrity in the enforcement of the legislation.

Another step toward greater consistency with Elections Canada is the requirement for the agency to issue legal interpretations and advanced rulings. Under the existing situation the agency is not required to provide written interpretations of law or to give parties clear answers to questions about what is allowed and what is not. The fair elections act would require the agency to issue advanced rulings to political parties seeking to understand how the rules apply.

As one can imagine, the Canada Elections Act is an extremely complex statute. At times, political parties are not sure exactly what the rules mean or how they will be interpreted, more importantly, by the agency. The fair elections act would require the agency to write down advanced rulings within a confined time period. Those rulings would act as a precedent for all parties. This would allow for a new standard of consistency across party lines for the application of rules. In other words, if one party asks if a practice is allowed and Elections Canada says yes, then that decision will set a precedent and all parties will be able to follow that precedent and comply with the law in the same way as the original party. This is a major improvement over the status quo.

For the CEO to seek the removal of a member of Parliament over a financial dispute about an election filing, he or she would first have to allow that member of Parliament to exhaust all legal challenges. This is another improvement. In other words, judges must be empowered to rule on these financial disputes between elected MPs and the agency before the head of the agency overturns an election result. This would protect the sanctity of the vote, remembering that it is not agency heads who pick members of Parliament but voters. The fair elections act would ensure that voters remain in charge of that process.

Elections Canada would also be required to focus all of its advertising on the basics of voting: where, when, and what ID to bring. It would also be required to advertise specifically to people with disabilities about the special tools available to help them cast their ballots. For example, it would be important for a paraplegic to know that there is a wheelchair ramp located at the voting location. It would be important for someone who is visually impaired to know that Braille services are available. Many of these Canadians are not aware of these services. This law would require the agency to inform them, so that not only would they have the services that they need, but they would know about them before they cast their ballot.

Finally, the fair elections act would add an additional day for voting. Many Canadians are too busy to cast their ballot on election day itself, so the fair elections act would give them an extra day in the lead-up to that voting day in order to cast their ballot and participate in democracy.

The bill in essence would make it easier to vote and harder to break the law. The rules would be clear, consistent, and easy to follow. Once and for all, Canadians would be required to bring identification to prove who they are before they cast their ballot.

These steps move in the right direction and the Canadian people overwhelmingly support them.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by thanking the minister for bringing back vouching for address. The pressure that Canadians mounted over the total gutting of vouching under Bill C-23 eventually caused someone in the government, for reasons to be seen, to return vouching for address.

I would also like to indicate that for all of the times that the minister tried to convince people that voter information cards can be a source of fraud, he has never once been able to show one example, and all his general examples never worked. The fact is that people need a second piece of ID and if they have received a voter information card that is not their own, in order to vote they have to forge a second piece to do so. How many Canadians would even think about it, let alone do that?

Why did the government not agree to the amendments from the official opposition to require that calling service providers send audio recordings and scripts to the CRTC and that calling service providers have to keep phone numbers? At the moment, they do not even have to keep them, let alone send them. Finally, why did he not agree to require the CRTC to keep all data received for at least seven years?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, on the first point, the NDP members have suggested that we should allow people to vote with no ID whatsoever when they arrive at the voting location. They put forward amendments to that effect, and we have eliminated that. We have ended the process of identity vouching and replaced it with a mandatory ID requirement. If people do not have an address on their ID, they can co-sign an oath as to their residency, but they cannot have their identity vouched for. They will require proof of who they are in writing by choosing from 39 different forms of ID that will help them do that.

As for the issue of recordings of automated calls and scripts, calling companies and those who use automated calls will be required to retain those recordings and those scripts for three years, and those companies will be asked to turn that information over if there is an investigation into those calls.

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

Mr. Speaker, there was quite a bit of evidence about how the CEO and Elections Canada can promote voting and encourage people to vote. One of the programs singled out would be the civics programs, which I think is an ideal program. I think every member here agrees it is a great little program, but the amendments went to a narrowly focused solution as to how Elections Canada can communicate with the public.

Where is the new flexibility for Elections Canada to be able to engage with the public in a way that encourages voting?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is not the job of Elections Canada to run campaigns. The job of Elections Canada is to inform people where, when, and how to vote. That is what the fair elections act will require all of the agency's advertising to focus on.

We supported an amendment to permit programs in high schools because basically that is consistent with the where, when, and how to vote objective of the agency. Students in pre-adulthood are not really aware of how voting happens; these programs, which basically allow mock elections at schools, would give them that basic information so that when they graduate, they know what elections are about, how they work, and what one does to cast a ballot. However, there is no question that the fair elections act would narrow the focus of the agency so that its advertising focuses on the basics of voting and on no other area.

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-23, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other Acts and to make consequential amendments to certain Acts, as reported (with amendments) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand here today to speak in favour of the fair elections act, Bill C-23.

We have heard an awful lot of debate, many hours of debate, on this very important bill. We have heard from an almost unprecedented number of witnesses at committee. Over 70 witnesses have appeared before the committee examining this piece of legislation. We have also heard from Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

Without question, Canadians have voiced their pleasure with Bill C-23, the fair elections act, because it deals with a number of very important changes to how we conduct elections in our country.

I should also point out, particularly to my colleagues on opposition benches, that although they have raised their voices in protest against the bill, many eminent Canadians who are incredibly knowledgeable about elections have stated that they believe the bill is certainly be a positive step.

I point out to my colleagues opposite that former chief electoral officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley, after seeing the bill and examining it for the first time, said he rated it as an A-. Once that happened, of course, the Minister of State for Democratic Reform said that perhaps through examination at committee we could bring forward some improvements to the bill and turn an A- into an A+.

That is exactly what we have done. We have listened, and listened carefully, to witnesses. We listened to testimony at committee and we have brought forward 45 amendments to the bill that would strengthen and improve the bill itself.

I think that proves quite convincingly to all that we have listened to much of the testimony throughout this proceeding and we have acted to bring improvements to those elements of the bill that needed to be improved.

However, it seems that all of the elements of the bill have been overshadowed by one single area, the area of vouching.

I want to spend the remainder of the limited time I have before me today talking about the changes we have made to the bill that would, in effect, eliminate vouching.

As the Minister of State for Democratic Reform stated just a few moments ago, up until this bill, it had been possible for any Canadian without a shred of identification to come forward to cast a ballot in a general election.

Quite frankly, we just think that is not what Canadians expect in conducting fair and open elections. We believe, at a bare minimum, that individuals should be able to, and must be required to, prove their identity.

Let me state that the overwhelming majority of Canadians agree with our position on this very fundamental aspect of elections. In fact, not only have we heard from Canadians from coast to coast to coast, but there has also been a recent poll that showed with empirical evidence that over 85% of Canadians felt it appropriate that individuals planning to cast a ballot produce identification as to who they are, and over 70% of Canadians agreed with our position that vouching should be eliminated.

For those who are not aware of the term, vouching allows someone to go to a polling station without one shred of identification and ask someone who has proper identification to vouch for them—in other words, to state, “I know this person. This person is a Canadian citizen. I know where they live. They are 18 years of age or older. I know the person's name. Let them have a ballot”.

Canadians just did not feel that was proper. Canadians felt, quite properly, that all those who wanted to cast a ballot and exercise their franchise should, at a minimum, be required to show who they were and show proper identification. The fair elections act would require that. Vouching would be eliminated. If someone does not have the proper piece of identification showing their address, as the minister stated earlier, they will now be allowed to sign an oath that is co-signed by someone who does have proof of identity and address, and then they will be able to exercise their franchise and cast a vote.

When we had debate on this very important question throughout the committee hearings and throughout the debate in the House, if we listened to the opposition, it seemed as though this would be the end of democracy. If people could not vouch for someone without identification, all hell would break loose.

Excuse my language, but I am using a colloquial expression.

That is the farthest thing from Canadians' minds. As I said, over 77% of Canadians felt that vouching should be eliminated.

I would also point out that in that same poll, which I believe was conducted by Ipsos Reid, the pollsters asked those people responding not only where they lived, their age, and other demographic information, but who they would support in a general election. What did they find? They found that 66% of people who said that they would support the NDP also believed that vouching should be eliminated.

We have the unbelievable situation of the NDP, which is in favour of vouching, finding that the majority of Canadians do not agree with its position, and, more interestingly, the majority of people who vote for the NDP do not agree with the NDP's position. It just goes to show once again that the changes we have made in the fair elections act are what Canadians wanted to see.

There is one final point that I should make on vouching and the contradictory nature of the position taken by the members opposite on both the NDP and Liberal benches.

When they conduct their own elections in leadership campaigns, do they allow vouching? Do the Liberals and the NDP, when they turn to their members to elect a new leader, which both parties have done in the very recent past, allow vouching? No, they do not. They require their own members, before they are able to cast a ballot on who they would like to see as the leader of their party, to show proper identification as to who they are and where they reside.

On the one hand, we have this bizarre situation of the members opposite wanting to allow Canadians the ability to vote without identification in a general election, yet when electing their own leaders, they cannot do that. They say no; when we are electing a leader, we want to protect against voter fraud, so we demand that everyone produce identification showing who they are and where they live. However, in a general election, they take the opposite view.

Frankly, it is not only contradictory; it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Canadians have spoken, and we have listened. We have made changes to make elections in this country fairer, more transparent, and more open. It is a good day when Parliament passes Bill C-23.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech. He participated in the committee discussions about this process, which was botched from start to finish.

There was no prior consultation, and the Conservatives refused to do consultations across the country during the process. They also limited debate in the House. The Conservatives botched this reform. Never has an electoral reform bill been so screwed up.

In his speech, my colleague said that many experts were in favour of the reforms, but I did not hear him name a single one except for Mr. Kingsley, who ended up changing his mind when he appeared before the committee.

Can my colleague name a single elections expert, other than the Conservatives, who supports his bill?

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

Mr. Speaker, first I would make comment on one of the earlier points in the intervention by my colleague opposite, where he said this process was bungled, and that we did not listen to Canadians because we did not engage in a cross-country tour.

I would point out to the member opposite that over 70 witnesses appeared at committee, and not one witnesses who was recommended to appear was turned down. Let me reiterate that. Of all the witnesses proposed by members of the opposition benches, not one of them was rejected by our government, and we had a majority on that committee. We allowed every single witness who was suggested by members opposite to come to committee. We did not hold back. We allowed every single person they brought.

Some of the witnesses they brought forward were incredibly partisan in their views. I would point out that the members opposite on the NDP benches suggested that the organization Leadnow.ca would be a credible witness. For those who are not aware of the organization Leadnow, this is a very far left activist group, which is frankly supported by the NDP. During the recent robocall inquisition, they put a position online and gathered 40,000 signatures. However, none of them had any credible information about robocalls. They were just saying that they would like someone to investigate. That is the type of witnesses that the NDP brought forward.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member makes reference to the number of witnesses who came before the committee. I had the opportunity to sit through a number of those witnesses, including the Chief Electoral Officer, the Commissioner of Canada Elections, and other independent organizations who have been fantastic representatives of Canada's democracy.

I want to focus on Elections Canada and the commissioner. Both of them recommended that Elections Canada or the commissioner have the ability to compel a witness. Other provincial jurisdictions of the same nature, independent election authorities, already have that ability.

The issue is, why does the government not recognize and allow for Elections Canada or the Commissioner of Canada Elections to have the ability to compel a witness? What does the government have to hide that would prevent it from allowing them to do the things they should be able to do?

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

Mr. Speaker, I would point out that certainly during the course of an investigation, officials now investigating any perceived or alleged elections wrongdoing have the same ability as police officers do when conducting their own investigations. There is nothing untoward or unusual, whatsoever.

However, I want to point out to members opposite, on both the Liberal and the NDP benches, a couple of other points that relate to an earlier question from my NDP colleague, who asked for the names of some other officials who supported the bill. I would point out that the former auditor general Sheila Fraser came to committee. She said that she had a concern with moving the commissioner of elections from Elections Canada over to the DPP offices, only because she felt there would not be adequate communication between Elections Canada and the commissioner of elections.

We listened, and we made changes in the form of an amendment, to allow full communication between Elections Canada and the commissioner of elections. Sheila Fraser would applaud those changes, and I think she is considered by all Canadians to be eminent in her position.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I consider myself lucky to be able to speak to Bill C-23, especially because time allocation has been imposed at every step of the way. This bill has elicited a lot of debate. Thus, we have not been able to talk about Bill C-23 freely or as much as it warrants.

First, I would like to say something about the Conservative amendments adopted at committee stage. I believe that they would not have been adopted without the work of the NDP, especially my colleagues from Louis-Saint-Laurent and Toronto—Danforth.

As soon as the NDP received this bill, we realized that there were major problems and we decided to take action. Unlike the government, we consulted Canadians, we travelled across the country to hear their opinions and we listened carefully to the experts. As a result of our efforts, the Conservative government agreed to back down on some aspects of this bill. Unfortunately, it still contains many flaws.

The NDP, in good faith, suggested almost 100 amendments to improve this very controversial bill. Unfortunately, the Conservatives put their ideology ahead of the country's interests. The only amendments accepted were those to correct some wording or vocabulary errors. No substantive NDP amendment was adopted by the Conservative Party, which naturally had a majority on the committee.

The worst thing about all this is that the Conservative government, by means of its majority in committee, ended debate even before half of the amendments proposed by the NDP were debated. This is indicative of the government's scorn for the democratic process, even though the bill is actually about democratic reform.

I would like to put things in context. During an opposition day in March 2012, following the robocalls scandal, the NDP moved a motion to strengthen the election process. The motion called on the government to introduce a bill within six months of the motion being adopted. We waited much longer than six months.

I would like to point out that the motion was adopted unanimously. Among other things, it sought to strengthen Elections Canada's authority over investigations and presented measures to prevent more fraudulent calls from happening in the future. One would have reasonably expected the government to want to put things right, but it did not take those measures into account and even made things worse in its bill.

We asked that the Chief Electoral Officer be given more power to conduct investigations and to compel witnesses to appear, for example. Right now, when the Chief Electoral Officer tries to investigate a scandal, such as the robocalls, he does not even have the authority to compel potential witnesses to appear. How can he investigate when the people involved merely have to say that they do not wish to appear? That approach is not working very well. It seems to me that anybody can understand that the Chief Electoral Officer should be able to compel witnesses to appear. The Chief Electoral Officer should have been given more investigative powers to ensure that, in the future, he never finds that his hands are tied and he is unable to make sufficient progress and get the proof he needs, which unfortunately is the case right now.

Not only is the government refusing to give the Chief Electoral Officer the power to investigate, but it is also going to prevent him from educating the public and encouraging people to vote. The only person who can do this sort of work in a non-partisan way is the Chief Electoral Officer.

This work includes encouraging people to vote and finding innovative ways to get young people to vote. The government is now preventing the only person who could have done this in a non-partisan way from doing the job.

These amendments give him back a little bit of power. He will be able to participate in youth engagement programs in elementary and secondary schools. However, unfortunately, he does not have the right to encourage young people between the ages of 18 and 25 to vote. He is therefore only allowed to encourage people who are not yet old enough to vote to exercise the right to vote.

I am very pleased that young people in elementary and secondary schools are being encouraged to learn about the election process and eventually play their role as citizens, but it does not make sense that the only people the Chief Electoral Officer is allowed to approach are those who are not yet able to vote. He does not have the right to talk to students in colleges, universities or aboriginal groups. It does not make sense.

Let us talk about another problem they refused to address. We wanted to keep vouching from the start. They wanted to get rid of it, but in the end they went back on their decision. However, the voter card does not provide proof of address. People like students, seniors and first nations members will have a hard time establishing proof of address.

What is more, the NDP proposed an amendment to include a notice on the voter card that the voter could no longer use that card to vote with or as identification. This amendment seems logical to me, but the Conservatives did not even accept it. This speaks to their illogical thinking.

I know we are not allowed to use props, but I conducted a little experiment. The hon. member for Manicouagan can attest to this because he counted along with me. I emptied my wallet to see what I had on me. If I had to prove my identification today, in my purse I have 21 pieces of ID with my name on them. However, I have only three cards that prove where I live. In fact, I have to exclude my list of drugs from the pharmacy because it is not an acceptable proof of address. The only things left are my hospital card and my driver's licence. They are the only two ID cards I have in my wallet with my address on them.

Needless to say, not everyone has a driver's licence. As far as the hospital card is concerned, what happens when people have not been to the hospital in 10 years? If they moved, the address on their card might be the one they had 5 or 10 years ago, when they last went to the hospital.

If I did not have a driver's licence and had recently changed my address, I would not be able to prove who I am. However, I am not a member of one of the most vulnerable groups. Imagine more vulnerable groups such as seniors, aboriginal people and students, who already have a hard time proving their identity. What will they do?

I encourage everyone to do a test at home by emptying out their wallet. They will see that their address is not shown on many of their cards. A lot of cards will have their name, but not many will have their address.

I do not walk around with my hydro and phone bills in my purse. Not to mention, I cannot even get these bills mailed to me for free. I get them online, like everyone else. Online bills are not considered original documents under the law. They are just copies printed out from a computer.

The bill still has some flaws that have not been fixed. Since more than 70 people testified in committee and only one of them supported Bill C-23, I think the Conservative government could have shown a lot more openness.

Whether we like it or not, the minister is new to his job. It is understandable that he might not draft a perfect bill. I look forward to my colleagues' questions.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her speech. She did a very good job of explaining how hard it will be for people to prove their identity under the new rules. However, my question has more to do with the process of drafting, studying and passing the bill.

Does she think it is okay for a government—any government—to use its majority not only to change elections legislation, but also to limit speaking time during debates and committee meetings?

Does she think it is okay for the Conservative government to use its majority to change elections legislation without consulting anyone and without seeking any degree of consensus whatsoever with the other parties that participate in the electoral process and that will have to work with this bill once it is amended?

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think it is okay at all. When it comes to reforming our democratic institutions, it is not okay for a government to act this way.

For example, the Government of Quebec held an open discussion among the various political parties about reforming the financing rules. They achieved a degree of consensus. Even though there were disagreements about the exact amount, it was about financing, and the discussion was open. What we are dealing with here is a major reform of our elections legislation, and over and over, the Conservative government limits time for debate.

This attitude demonstrates the Conservative government's complete disregard for our democracy, and I think it is a real shame that this is the message it is sending to the next generation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her answer.

I have another question about proof of identity, which she spoke about during her speech. The Conservatives often compare means of identification during an election to those used during other processes, such as a leadership race and so on. They seem to forget that, during an election, the right to vote is a constitutional right.

Could she talk about the constitutional right to vote that Canadians are entitled to? Why is it important to protect that right by allowing those who cannot identify themselves to have access to a mechanism that allows them to exercise their constitutional right to vote even if they cannot always provide ID?

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in order to legitimize a democratic institution, those who contributed to its creation must be able to participate in it.

The Constitution protects the right to vote. The government cannot refuse to allow numerous people to vote under the pretext that they are unable to prove their identity. The government cannot introduce legislation that prevents people from proving their identity when they are able to do so.

I have some concrete examples. Take, for instance, a person in my home town who shows up and does not have any identification. The Elections Canada employee has known that individual for 60 years and has no doubt about who it is because they are from the same town. The Elections Canada employee would be forced to prevent that individual from voting. While there is no question about who the person is, and the employee knows that the individual is not trying to vote fraudulently, the employee would still have to prevent that individual from voting. That makes no sense.

To protect the legitimacy of a government, we need to protect the integrity of the right to vote. Those two elements go hand in hand.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let me just say, first, how pleased I am to speak to the fair elections act today. I have been looking forward to it, because I wanted to tell members about a meeting I held in my riding with Port Credit seniors, who were very concerned about the fair elections act. They had been reading a lot about it, specifically in The Globe and Mail, and they wanted to know from their member of Parliament what this was all about and how it would actually affect them. The reason I am delighted to speak about it today is that I wanted to tell members what the concerns of those seniors were, and specifically how the amendments introduced on April 24 address the concerns of those seniors in the riding of Mississauga South. Most Canadians, I believe, think those amendments are fair and reasonable and common sense.

Let me begin by saying that the fair elections act was very important for this government to bring forward. Elections must be free and fair, but there were some issues with the Elections Act as it was, and some loopholes needed to be closed. We are fulfilling a promise made in the throne speech with regard to dealing with some of these issues.

First, let me say that I was able to assuage some of the concerns of those seniors. Let me tell you what they were. There were three or four main concerns.

One of my constituents mentioned hearing that there was not enough consultation on the bill. That person had the impression that the bill was somehow introduced and then never discussed again. I was able to say that we had 15 meetings of the parliamentary procedures and House affairs committee, that there were 31 hours of debate on the bill at committee, and that 72 witnesses appeared. That says a great deal about the commitment we have to making sure that we talk this through. Those witnesses, as members know, were high profile and very well informed and were able to give the committee some very good and sage advice.

The 45 amendments that came out of that consultation, 14 of them substantial, I think go a long way to alleviating some of the concerns people have.

One of the concerns that was not specifically brought up at the meeting I am talking about but that was of concern to me was with regard to disagreements about MPs' election expense returns and the rulings the CEO makes. That concerns me as a member of Parliament, because I have heard and read about and seen here in this 41st Parliament situations when the MP and the CEO, the Chief Electoral Officer, sometimes have disagreed about an MP's election expense return. When that happens, the Canada Elections Act provides that the MP can no longer sit or vote in the House of Commons until that election return is amended to satisfy the CEO.

I do not believe that the election of a democratically elected member of Parliament can be reversed. It is the decision of tens of thousands of voters, and no one should have the power to reverse that democratic election without first convincing a judge. The fair elections act would allow the MP to present that disputed case in a court and to have judges rule on it before the CEO sought the MP's suspension.

This brings in the idea of the registry. It is very important that these rulings be presented in writing. That would allow members of Parliament or candidates in the future to reference those rulings. They would be precedent setting. We could look them up. The rulings would provide further clarification. These are the kinds of things that would make our process less opaque. It would become easier for us to follow the myriad rules we must follow with regard to election expenses.

With regard to the CEO and the commissioner, some of my constituents had become concerned that from what they had read, the commissioner would be reporting to the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. I assured my constituents that this would not in any way impede the independence of the commissioner. In fact, it would give the commissioner the ability to investigate, but completely independently, without giving any specifics of a case to the Director of Public Prosecutions. We would extend the time from 45 to 60 days for the CEO to publish that ruling once those investigations were complete. To me, that is an important piece that was missing from the Canada Elections Act.

The biggest concern of the seniors in my riding was with respect to vouching and identification. We had a long conversation about how this would work and what, if anything, had changed. Part of the impression they were left with was that somehow we had changed the number of acceptable pieces of ID. That is not the case. It was 39 pieces before and it remains 39 pieces of acceptable identification. When I told them that for the two pieces of identification, their neighbour or friend or son or daughter would be able to vouch for their address or place of residence, that went a long way to addressing their concerns. All of them have identification that proves that they are who they are, but they were concerned that if, let us say, someone had just moved in with his or her son or daughter, and the election was happening right away, he or she would not have any bills going to that address. It is a legitimate concern, which is why I was relieved when our government decided to amend the bill to allow an attestation, which I think it is officially called, of someone's address.

I also mentioned to the constituents in my riding that in Ontario, there is a provincial identification card. I know this, because I am the mother of two teenagers, and sometimes, other than a student card, which in many cases does not have a home address on it, students do not have identification if they do not yet have a driver's licence. Many of the seniors I spoke to did not realize that one can get a provincial ID card like this one. I know that we are not allowed props, but I have one. It is important for some people to get. I would imagine that other provinces have something similar. The provincial ID card is something folks can apply for and receive. It acts in the same way as a driver's licence. It has a photo, and it would be considered proof of identification as well as proof of address. I wanted to put that out there.

I also want to say that highlighting the deficiencies and addressing them with the amendments has not only improved the Elections Act but has made it fairer and freer. Therefore, I am pleased to support this bill.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Before I go to questions and comments, I want to remind all hon. members of this. The last two speakers have held pieces of identification in their hands. If they are doing that in order to refer to information, that is not problematic. If they use them as visual aids, that crosses the line and becomes a problem.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for New Westminster—Coquitlam.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague's comments and I have to add that the people in my riding of New Westminster—Coquitlam and Port Moody were very opposed to the proposed changes. In fact, they were offended by some of the changes. I would add that not only are people very concerned but experts right across the country, including the Chief Electoral Officer, are extremely alarmed at the content of this bill. Even the media is overwhelmingly opposed. The Globe and Mail did a five-part op-ed explaining just how bad this bill was. Many people have told me outright that they are extremely concerned and that what the government is doing, essentially, is taking a page right out of the U.S. Republicans' playbook in terms of marginalizing voters in our country.

Why is the government making it harder for seniors, students and aboriginal Canadians on reserve by not allowing the VIC as proof of address?

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased the member referred to the VIC, because it is commonly misunderstood. It does not stand for “voter identification card”; it stands for “voter information card”. It is a way for Elections Canada to inform voters about where they vote, what time they vote and what pieces of identification they can bring to be allowed to vote. However, it is not a piece of identification.

The voters lists kept by Elections Canada are not always perfect. In fact, there are many mistakes on them, and the cards are produced from those lists. Therefore, it is absolutely imperative that those cards are not accepted as valid pieces of identification.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the fact that the member met with her constituents to try to get a better understanding of why so many Canadians were upset with the way government was changing our election laws. It is somewhat interesting that we need to emphasize this point. The legislation, from its creation to where it is today, is in front of the House for one reason, and that is a majority Conservative Party happens to be government.

There were no consultations outside of the Conservative Party. When the bill went to committee, even when there were independent agencies such as Elections Canada that said the Commissioner of Canada Elections should stay within Elections Canada and even when the Commissioner of Canada Elections appeared in committee and said that his office should stay within Elections Canada, the Conservative majority, time and time again, ignored many recommendations that would have improved the legislation. The legislation, as it is today, is a one-party piece of legislation from its origin.

Given the fact that there are multiple political parties in Canada, does the member not believe in passing an election law that should have at least some form of support that goes beyond the Conservative Party, that would include other political parties or Elections Canada, some sort of consensus?

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think the consensus is clear in terms of what Canadians want to see, and that is fair elections.

From the Ipsos poll that was released last week, 87% of Canadians thought a person should have a piece of identification to vote. To me, this means Canadians wanted legislation on this, and we have provided that as a government.

Absolutely, there will be disagreement. That is where the consultation came in, and I talked about that at the beginning of my speech. Changes and amendments were made based on the feedback that came from those consultations.

[José Nunez-Melo, NDP, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, Mother's Day, was a very happy day in my riding. I had the opportunity to visit a seniors' residence, which hosted a number of wonderful activities. Everyone was happy and was having a good time. The weather was nice as well. People were happy and content.

I could not help but think that this was a break for those who had told me they were worried about the election reform introduced by the Minister of State for Democratic Reform. Just a few minutes ago, my hon. colleague from Mississauga South mentioned seniors. Yesterday, older mothers were celebrating, but they also told me that they were wondering where the government was going with this election reform.

They are very worried because they have been voting with their voter information cards for quite some time and there has never been a problem. Furthermore, most seniors' residences have a polling station in the lobby. Everyone knows each other and knows who lives there. These people do not need all kinds of other ID cards.

These people are very worried, and they shared their concerns with me. Furthermore, they are discouraged by this government's attitude, especially in committee, where it imposed time allocation to limit debate. They listened to the testimony from the witnesses who were called at third reading.

The amendments proposed by the Conservatives—we will see later today—do not reflect the amendments our caucus proposed. This leaves much to be desired, since our caucus's slogan is “Working together”.

Unfortunately, members on the other side of the House do not share this perspective. They are stubborn and, since they have a majority on all the committees and even here in the House of Commons, this arrogant attitude leaves much to be desired. My constituents tell me this on a regular basis when they respond to my mail-outs or call me directly. Voters took advantage of my presence in my riding two weeks ago to come and see me. They told me that changes need to be made in the House of Commons.

Because of the way these people shared their concerns, I do not believe that they intend to wait until October 2015 to see such changes. They are concerned because this electoral reform is going to cause major upheaval. The arrogant and negative attitude of our colleagues opposite bothers people. They think it shows a blatant lack of respect for Canadians.

The Conservatives have demonstrated that lack of respect on more than one occasion, when they have attacked the Chief Electoral Officer, the former auditor general and many politically savvy people with strong opinions. These individuals have told the Conservatives directly not to take this reform any further because it is unconstitutional and undemocratic. However, the Conservatives are not listening.

I would also like to talk about the terrible provisions set out in this bill. I am very concerned about the fact that the Chief Electoral Officer is having some of his authority taken away. Historically, the Chief Electoral Officer has had the mandate to coordinate any action required to elect a government in Canada. If that person has to deal with a lot of statutory or regulatory obstacles, democracy will be dealt a severe blow. Many people are concerned about this.

In previous years, Canada had a very good international reputation. Our country was an almost perfect example of democracy. Human rights were recognized here. Everyone was free. People could work and live comfortably.

In my opinion, this will definitely be the last Conservative government. As we have seen in the past, the Conservatives do not seem to want to let go. The government is being stubborn and wants to cling to power. Since they have a majority, the Conservatives are making all sorts of changes so that they might have the chance to stay in power longer.

A prime example is the Conservatives' current reform of the Elections Act. Their plans will give them every advantage. They are increasing the amount that an individual can donate from $1,200 to $1,500. Additionally, candidates can inject $5,000 of their own money into their own election campaign. This will obviously benefit the wealthy in our society. They will be able to run for office and will have a better chance of winning, no matter the riding.

There is something else bothering many people in Laval and across Canada. I frequently receive letters from people in Ontario, especially members of the Latin American community who know me. They tell me about their concerns, which I forward to their MP. They are concerned that the Commissioner of Canada Elections will lose some of his rights. That is unacceptable.

We are opposed to these election reforms.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Laval for his speech.

I would like to ask him a very specific question about the process that took place while this bill was studied. We know that a bill to amend an electoral law usually entails extensive consultation from the very beginning. The opposition parties and electoral agencies should have an opportunity to explain what is required in our Canada Elections Act. In fact, this bill concerns everyone and strikes at the very heart of our democracy.

I would like the member to comment on that. Does he believe that the Conservatives' efforts with respect to changes to the Canada Elections Act were sufficient given the magnitude of the bill?

[José Nunez-Melo, NDP, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my distinguished colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent.

What happened in committee is troubling. I am not sure if you watch the news on television very often, Mr. Speaker, but nearly all the political commentators have said they are shocked by the attitude of the committee's Conservative majority. The Conservatives did not listen to anyone. They practically muzzled everyone. They said we could bring forward some witnesses, who would each have their turn to speak, but the Conservatives did not listen to them and adjourned the meeting. We put a lot of work into this. We must thank our honourable colleague from Hamilton Centre for standing up to them. That is what happened.

The Conservatives showed a rather arrogant attitude by imposing this reform and making it appear as though they were giving people the opportunity to express themselves. That was not true.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to continue on with the member's reference to committees.

The Liberal Party critic had the opportunity to introduce dozens of amendments, some of which were fairly substantial in their very nature, such as allowing Elections Canada and the commissioner to compel witnesses. The New Democratic Party also brought forward amendments.

As a result of time allocation, many of those amendments were never even discussed. At 5 p.m. on May 1, using its majority, the government passed or did not pass all of the amendments without any due process. That speaks volumes. The same thing applied for second reading and the same thing applies at report stage and will apply at third reading. The government continually uses time allocation.

Bill C-23 is a one-party piece of legislation. It is a Conservative Party bill and that is it.

I am wondering what the member has to say with regard to the way in which the Conservative government has been pushing this legislation through with a lack of respect for the opposition, which in essence, demonstrates a lack of respect for all Canadians.

[José Nunez-Melo, NDP, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Winnipeg North for his comment and question.

He is absolutely right. He reiterated what we have been seeing in most of the committees with a Conservative majority. What is more, the Conservatives are pushing through their bills and anything else they want.

The member is right about our caucus, and our representation on such a committee. If memory serves me correctly, a hundred or so amendments were proposed. I think that fewer than half were read, consulted, verified or anything. The Conservatives made it clear from the outset that they did not want to listen. They keep moving time allocation motions and limiting the speaking time of our representatives but never make any mention of that.

My colleague from Winnipeg North is absolutely right. That is their strategy. That is what they want to do.

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very honoured to speak to Bill C-23. There has been a lot of misinformation on the subject, and I am happy to have the opportunity to clarify at least some of it, and clarify why our Conservative government is putting forward the fair elections act.

A system can never be perfect, but we can always work toward improving it one step at a time. This is the very reason why the government put forward the fair elections act. This bill is designed to protect the fairness of federal elections and to ensure that all citizens are in charge of our democracy. Democracy becomes susceptible to threat when the rules are not given the proper respect. Therefore, it is our duty as citizens, and as members of the House, to protect its integrity as that in itself protects our freedom to live in a democracy.

The fair elections act would strengthen democracy by making it harder for people to break the law. The act would implement 38 of the Chief Electoral Officer's past recommendations. The first of many changes would be the process in which the commissioner of Canada Elections is appointed. It would establish that the commissioner is to be appointed by the director of public prosecutions for a seven-year term and could not be dismissed without cause. The commissioner would have full independence, with control of his or her staff and investigations. The act would permit the commissioner to publicly disclose information about the investigations when it is in the public interest, which would improve transparency.

The act would add a section that deals with voter contact calling services. Among other things, this section would require 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. It would become a requirement for the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to 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 filed.

The fair elections act would give law enforcement more tools to protect the integrity of our elections by allowing the commissioner to seek tougher penalties for existing offences. It is our full intention to not allow a fast and loose approach with the rules of democracy. For more serious offences, the bill would raise the maximum fine from $2,000 to $20,000 on summary convictions, and from $5,000 to $50,000 on indictment. For registered parties, it would raise the maximum fine from $25,000 to $50,000 on summary convictions for strict liability political financing offences, and from $25,000 to $100,000 on summary convictions for political financing offences that are committed intentionally. For third parties that are groups or corporations that failed to register as third parties, the bill would raise the maximum fine to $50,000 for strict liability offences, and to $100,000 for offences that are committed intentionally.

By establishing tougher penalties, our Conservative government would deter the occurrences of offences, intentional or unintentional.

To encourage voter turnout, the bill would make it easier for voters to participate in the democratic process. The fair elections act would provide an extra day of advance polling. The additional day of voting would take place on the eighth day before polling day, creating a block of four consecutive advance polling days. This amendment would surely make it easier for Canadians across the country to vote.

It would also improve transparency by allowing the establishment of an advisory committee of political parties to provide advice to the chief electoral officers on matters relating to elections and political financing. It would amend the act to provide for the appointment of field liaison officers based on merit, to provide support for the returning officers, and to provide a link between returning officers and the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer.

The fair elections act aims to respect democratic election results. There are occasions, and my colleague spoke to this before, when the Chief Electoral Officer disagreed with the elected MPs' election expense returns. When this occurs, the MP can no longer sit or vote in the House of Commons until the expense return is changed to the CEO's satisfaction. This prevents the democratically elected member of Parliament from representing his or her constituency. The fair election act would allow the MP to present the disputed case to the courts and to have a judge quickly rule on it before the CEO makes the suspension.

In Canada, we are seeing a trend where money from special interest can drown out the voices of everyday citizens. The fair elections act would let small donors contribute more to democracy and prevent illegal, big money from sneaking in the back door.

Although the fair elections act would allow small increases in spending limits, it would be done to ensure that parties have enough resources to increase their outreach efforts and help encourage voter turnout. At the same time, this bill would impose tougher audits and penalties to enforce those limits.

This bill would help ensure that voter fraud does not occur by strengthening the rules around voter identification. With respect to voter ID, the act would be amended to require the same voter identification for voting at the Office of the Return Officer in an elector's own riding as it requires for voting at ordinary polls. It would also prohibit the use of voter information cards as a proof of identity.

It would eliminate the ability of an elector to prove their identity through vouching, and require an elector whose name was crossed off electors' lists in error to take a written oath before receiving a ballot. I want to explain why this is important. With a democracy comes responsibility. As a voter, I am responsible for providing proper identification so that I can participate in the democratic process.

Voting is one of the most important privileges and duties that we get to enjoy, so it is extremely important that we do not treat it lightly, that we take it seriously and meet all of the requirements.

Members of all parties have noted that the rules can be unclear. It is our intention that the fair elections act would fix that identified problem by making rules for elections clear, predictable, and easy to follow. These are a few changes that are proposed in our bill. I believe that the fair elections act would protect the integrity of fair elections by improving transparency and enacting tougher penalities for rule breakers.

What our government understands is that Canadians overwhelmingly support this bill. As was mentioned before, 87% of people polled believe it is reasonable to require someone to prove their identity and address before they vote.

In conclusion, I would like to ask all members of this House to support the bill in order to bring democracy in this country to a higher level.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to the remarks made by my colleague from Mississauga East—Cooksville. I am a member of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, which studied this bill. I would like him to comment on the fact that most of the hundreds of amendments the opposition presented could not even be debated in committee, and that even the amendments we were able to debate were systematically rejected, without exception.

However, some of the amendments were absolutely reasonable and would really have improved the bill.

I asked several direct questions because I wanted answers about how some parts of the bill would affect our democracy. The Conservatives provided no justification whatsoever for some of their changes.

I would like him to justify that kind of attitude with respect to such a significant act, the Canada Elections Act, and with respect to changes that will affect our democracy in general.

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is a process that every bill goes through. We have debate in the House at second reading, then third reading, final reading. The bill goes to the committee and is discussed. There are some amendments that will be voted on, I believe, today. Some amendments are accepted in the process and some are not. This is a democratic process.

We, as members of Parliament, represent our constituents, and I suppose every member has had some kind of contact with constituents on this bill. I did. I received responses. There are some people who are against it. However, in my riding of Mississauga East—Cooksville, most of the responders strongly support the bill.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is important that we are very clear that this is not a normal piece of legislation. This is a law that would change the rules of the game in terms of democracy.

In the member's concluding remarks, he appeals to members to vote in favour of the bill. He is asking individual members to vote for the bill. I respect that. In fact, the leader of the Liberal Party has challenged the Prime Minister to a free vote on this very important piece of legislation.

The member made reference to bringing democracy to a higher level. Let us talk about the bill and how important it is because it would change our election laws. Let us talk about how it is that the Prime Minister should allow for a free vote on this issue.

Does the member recognize, given the very nature of the legislation from the moment it was introduced to the House to where we are today, that it is important that the Prime Minister allow for members of this House to have a free vote? It would change our election laws, something which would have a very significant impact going forward.

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do truly believe that the bill would bring democracy in our country to a higher level.

As I mentioned in my speech, the fair elections act would reflect on the recommendations that were given by the chief electoral officers. It reflects on the fact that there were irregularities in the past elections: reference the Supreme Court case.

This was all taken into consideration and addressed to improve the democratic process at our federal elections.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have this opportunity to speak to you today about Bill C-23 at report stage. We are studying the report that the committee produced about this bill to change our elections legislation.

To begin, I would like to talk about the process because there are some major problems with the process that Bill C-23 has gone through so far. I have been a member of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs for three years now, so I have heard from the Chief Electoral Officer, the Commissioner of Canada Elections and various Elections Canada employees on the subject of our elections legislation many times.

Three years ago, we studied the report of the Chief Electoral Officer, who recommended changes to our elections legislation. He said that parts of the bill should be amended to improve democracy in Canada. We worked on that for months, and the committee produced a report that included an analysis of each of the Chief Electoral Officer's recommendations.

After the robocall scandal broke, the NDP moved a motion in the House calling on the Conservatives to amend the Canada Elections Act, in particular to give Elections Canada the investigative powers it needed to request all necessary documents from political parties to ensure their compliance with the Elections Act.

Under the existing legislation, all candidates from each riding and political party must produce the documents requested by Elections Canada, such as invoices or other documentation, to verify their election spending. However, although $33 million was given to political parties during the last election, these parties did not have to submit any documentation. Elections Canada must simply assume that everything is fine and that the parties are complying with the Canada Elections Act.

I think this is one of the major flaws of Bill C-23. The Chief Electoral Officer has been calling for this very important power for a very long time. This power would help him investigate cases of fraud. However, when Bill C-23 was introduced, the bill did not provide for this power.

The motion I mentioned was unanimously passed by the House nearly two years ago and it contained that provision. However, when the bill was introduced, that provision was not there. I do not know when the government decided to change its mind. Perhaps it was when the court found that it was the Conservatives' database that was used in the robocall scandal. I do not know. The Conservatives tend to be rather unhappy when Elections Canada investigates cases of fraud, since they are generally the guilty ones.

Several months after we moved our motion, the minister of state for democratic reform at the time announced that he would introduce an election reform bill the following Thursday. However, on the Wednesday afternoon, right after the parties' caucus meetings, the bill mysteriously disappeared. Poof, no more bill. It was as though it never existed and it was never mentioned again.

Everyone wondered what had happened and where the electoral reform bill went. We will never know. We do not know what exactly was in the bill. We did not hear of it again until this past winter, when the new Minister of State for Democratic Reform introduced Bill C-23.

Not only does this bill not contain the powers requested by the Commissioner of Canada Elections and the Chief Electoral Officer or any of the requested measures that should be part of electoral reform, but it also includes changes that are both unjustified and downright harmful to our democracy. The government is trying to pull the wool over Canadians' eyes so that they do not realize that it is failing to do what needs to be done to improve democracy in Canada.

For example, how does it make sense to move the Commissioner of Canada Elections into the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions? We have no idea. The Conservatives say that it will make him more independent.

However, both the current and the former commissioners came to tell us that this move would not make the commissioner more independent and that it would instead interfere with his work. The Conservatives are telling us that it will help the commissioner, but the Commissioner himself is saying that he does not need to be more independent and that he does not understand the need for the changes.

This is all a show to hide the fact that the Commissioner made specific requests. He said that he is the one who investigates electoral fraud, and he told us specifically what would be really helpful to him during investigations. Nothing came of that. Instead, they are playing chess. The pieces are being moved around but nothing at all has changed in terms of the Commissioner's ability to properly investigate fraud.

There have been major problems throughout the process. When the Conservatives introduced the bill, we suggested that it be sent to committee before second reading. Basically, that would have given witnesses the opportunity to talk about what is in the bill. We would have had far greater flexibility to change various elements and produce the best electoral reform possible. That is the goal, really. I am certain that everyone wants that. The witnesses who would have appeared could have told us what needed to be changed.

Then we would have had a meaningful debate at second reading. The Conservative majority would not have imposed its will. The Conservatives decided to change everything just because they felt like it and because it would be to their advantage. This bill amends one of the most fundamental statutes in Canada. It affects 34 million Canadians. It affects every Canadian's right to vote. There was no pre-consultation with the Chief Electoral Officer, the commissioner or the political parties: no one. The Conservatives show up with this bill and force it down our throats, telling us it is good enough.

Now, because we fought quite hard and told the Conservatives that they could not just change the Canada Elections Act like this, they ended up backing down on some of the points that I thought were the most damaging. The only amendments proposed and adopted in committee—obviously those proposed by the government—mitigated some of the most troubling aspects of the bill. However, this does not change the fact that the bill fundamentally poses a lot of problems. Given the choice between the Canada Elections Act in its current form and Bill C-23, even amended, I would choose the Canada Elections Act because this bill includes too many changes and has too many flaws and problems to be acceptable.

In short, when the Conservatives introduced Bill C-23, it was a very bad bill. Currently, with the amendments, it is a very bad bill. The amendments do not go far enough for me to support this bill.

Now, how did things go in committee? Dozens of witnesses came to tell us that there were major problems with the bill that absolutely needed to be addressed and that the bill did not make sense. Finally, they managed to push hard enough that the government backed down a little on some things. However, overall, did the government representatives in committee listen to the witnesses? Did they really listen to the proceedings and take witnesses' opinions into consideration? I do not think so. The witnesses, who are experts on the subject, raised many points that did not find their way into Bill C-23 or the amendments. I guess we will have to wait for a new government in 2015 before the changes that really need to be made to the Canada Elections Act are finally made.

In the end, in a 21st century democracy and in a country like Canada, which is internationally respected for its democracy, it is a real problem for such a fundamental bill to be changed, introduced and imposed by a majority government that does not hold consultations and does not listen. It does not want to listen to anyone and does not want to hear about any problems with the bill. The government thinks its bill is terrific, and that is that.

The Conservatives really need to do better. They need to hold real consultations. A real reform of the Canada Elections Act is needed.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

The time provided for government orders has now expired. The hon. member for Louis-Saint-Laurent will have time for questions and comments after question period.

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-23, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other Acts and to make consequential amendments to certain Acts, as reported (with amendments) from the committee; and of motions in Group No. 1.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent for her excellent speech before oral question period. She gave a good description of all the flaws in the bill. At the beginning of her speech, she also touched a little on the process surrounding the drafting, consideration and amendment of the bill we are considering today at report stage.

Does my colleague think it is reasonable for the government to use its majority to unilaterally change the Canada Elections Act, an act that all parties in the House must be familiar with and comply with during elections? Does the member think it is reasonable for the Conservative government to have done this? Even the Liberals would not have done such a thing. Does she think it is reasonable for the government to use this kind of tactic, and to use its majority to dictate a new elections act?

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

Mr. Speaker, I sincerely thank my colleague from Sherbrooke for his question. It deals with one of the main problems with Bill C-23.

No, it is not reasonable for a government to use its majority to dictate changes to the Canada Elections Act. In fact, this practice is something that is never done in several Commonwealth countries. In Great Britain, for example, they are required to consult their electoral commission, the equivalent of Elections Canada, before amending the elections act. I believe the law in Australia also imposes an obligation to consult the opposition parties before amending the elections act.

These are changes that should not be made without broad consultation and a public consensus, because we are talking about the fundamental rules of our democracy. If people no longer have confidence in those rules, we have a serious problem.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, I know the hon. member wanted me to get up and ask a question after her impassioned speech earlier, so I will certainly oblige. I enjoyed my time on the procedure and House affairs committee with her, and everyone who spent a lot of time on Bill C-23.

My question stems from public opinion research that came to light, ironically the day before our government and the minister accepted substantial amendments to the bill based on commentary in this place and based on people who appeared before committee.

My question relates to vouching. It appears that the vast majority of Canadians, 86%, I believe, including the vast majority of NDP supporters, I might add, agreed with our government that it is reasonable to require someone to show identification when they are voting.

My question is for the hon. member. After all the hyperbole we heard with respect to the decline of democracy with the elimination of vouching, are the NDP keeping that strong position, does it feel that Canadians got it right, or does it agree with the majority of Canadians?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I have greatly enjoyed sitting with him on the committee. He always asks very interesting questions.

In terms of his question, and in relation to the 87% of people polled, I would like to remind him that the question respondents were asked was whether they agreed that people should have to identify themselves before voting. I entirely agree with that. I am among the 87% of Canadians who believe people should have to identify themselves before voting. The difference is that I think that having someone vouch for a person, and having that person sign a declaration confirming the identity of the person, is a sufficient form of identification.

When people were asked more specifically whether they were for or against abolishing vouching, a majority of Canadians were against. I therefore believe that I am still on the side of the majority of Canadians in opposing Bill C-23.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to offer my voice in this House of Commons on Bill C-23.

I did have the privilege of spending a lot of time, as I said, with colleagues on the procedure and House affairs committee. I also had the ability, particularly as a by-election winner, to follow this issue as it evolved to the present state that is before this House of Commons, which is Bill C-23.

In my brief time that I have, I am going to try to dispel a few myths that still linger out there on Bill C-23.

I have been having great conversations with people in my riding of Durham, and I know people in my riding have been patiently waiting for me to speak on this today. I have also heard from passionate Canadians on all sides of this issue, from people in coffee shops, some passionate University of Toronto professors talking about modernizing our elections law, critiques, positive comments, and that sort of thing. However, the echo chamber and politics around Bill C-23 led to some myths that in many cases still remain out there. Therefore, in my remarks today, I am going to try and dispel some of the myths.

The biggest myth that we still hear in debate in this place is that Bill C-23 came from out of nowhere, with no consultation, no contribution from expert opinion, and that sort of thing, that this was foisted upon Canada, and that it was done with strategic brilliance to favour Conservatives.

The reality is that Bill C-23 comes from the need to fix our antiquated system of administering elections. The “antique” comes from the Elections Canada expert charged with making recommendations on the forum. In fact, Harry Neufeld, at page 24 of his report, said: “...an overhaul is urgently required”.

Why did Elections Canada ask Mr. Neufeld, who served as the B.C. Chief Electoral Officer with distinction for many years, for this report?

Well, Elections Canada asked for it after the calamity of the election in Etobicoke Centre in 2011. We have a fine member for Etobicoke Centre in this place who won a narrow win by 26 votes. However, a lower court in Ontario overturned that result. All election observers recognize that if small margin elections can be overturned so easily, it could lead to a margin of litigation and in fact further lack of confidence in our election results.

Fortunately, in that case, the overturning of the result was reversed and the Supreme Court of Canada held that the member for Etobicoke Centre won. The Supreme Court decision also demonstrated that the system of running elections in Canada was profoundly broken, which led to Mr. Neufeld. In fact, that decision led to a national audit of elections with thousands of polls examined to see where there were errors in the system, including some polls in my 2012 by-election in Durham. That audit allowed Mr. Neufeld to examine the cases of errors in registration, in vouching, and make an urgent plea to modernize our elections law.

Mr. Neufeld was also prescient. We warned that there would be radical resistance because we live in a great parliamentary democracy. Our system seems to run quite well and so a lot of people do not feel there is really a need to reform. However, the Supreme Court of Canada case showed that fraud and irregularities can be considered on par if they result in an election result being overturned. Serious irregularities can lead to that result. We saw that in Etobicoke Centre.

What did Mr. Neufeld's report say about irregularities? On average, there are 500 irregularities per riding. Historically, there are a lot of politicians at the provincial and federal levels with the nickname “landslide”, and they usually get that nickname by winning their first election with a very narrow result.

In fact, most general elections have between 5 and 15 seats decided by 500 or fewer votes. Well, the audit showed that there are at least 500 irregularities or errors per riding. There was a real risk to the margin of litigation and no end to an election result in a community. It is unfair if that community has to wait months for litigation to the Supreme Court of Canada to determine who it is sending to the House of Commons.

Another myth I would like to address is vouching. I asked my hon. colleague a question on that because it was portrayed by some voices in the media that the elimination of vouching was the decline of our democracy as we know it. People were going to be disenfranchised and their constitutional right to vote was going to be struck from them. That is not the case. In fact, there were numbers quoted by some learned people, even before committee, suggesting that hundreds of thousands of people would lose their right to vote because of the elimination of vouching.

The fatal error with that logic is the fact that they did not ask the question to determine whether the person who vouched had any ID. I would note that only a few provinces allow vouching and no municipalities in the province of Ontario allow vouching. To suggest that everyone who used a vouching approach to voting would not have any ID to satisfy the basic registration requirements is simply erroneous. That number was thrown out and repeated many times, even by good members of this place, without any basis in reality.

What was the reality from the audit? Mr. Neufeld looked and 120,000 people in Canada vouched in the 2011 general election. There were 120,000 vouching transactions and he found 95,500 errors. It is hardly something that inspires confidence in a G7 country. They were serious errors. Often there were multiple mistakes made in the vouching process. Someone vouching several times for one person is not allowed, and that sort of thing, but Mr. Neufeld found that 42% of all vouching transactions, almost half, were serious errors. When we connect that with the Supreme Court that showed that serious errors and irregularities are as bad for our system as fraud, clearly something needed to be done. Mr. Neufeld, at page 28 of his report, said that it would be very difficult to fix vouching.

Therefore, we think it is reasonable to ask Canadians to show identification when they vote. Our amendments have also recognized that some people may have difficulty with the address component at registration, so there will be some flexibility built in for those people. However, I sincerely hope that in the future that ambiguity is eliminated so that we can have absolute certainty.

I would also refer people on this subject to the 2007 “Electoral Participation of Electors with Disabilities” report commissioned by Elections Canada. Dr. Prince ran that study that looked at specific groups that were under-represented on voting day. That report from Elections Canada, as well as people who appear before committee, confirmed that voter participation, low turnout rates of students, members of first nations, or the homeless, are not related to identification or registration issues. Their participation challenges are totally distinct and something we should address, but when it was being connected with vouching, it was done in a way to cause unnecessary concern among Canadians.

Finally, we have heard a lot in this place about the 39 forms of identification that Elections Canada provides. I found many people, even media commentators, thinking that those 39 pieces were in Bill C-23. Those forms of identification are outlined by Elections Canada after specific consideration for groups with low participation rates. I have suggested that attestation letters used by first nations, schools, and shelters could actually improve turnout. Those are there now. They were there in the last election.

Bill C-23 is an approach that we feel would modernize a system that has demanded modernization for a generation. Our modest amendments are as a result of having listened to the concerns and would strengthen the bill. I think we are going to have better results, in the future, in our elections.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I was listening to the statements by my distinguished colleague, I noticed that he has demonstrated the truth of Einstein’s words. Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Once again, we have an ill-advised bill that will immediately be challenged if it is passed. It will be challenged by the first nations, who will be asking by what right the act is being amended to give them less access to the vote. Student associations will be saying the same thing.

The Chief Electoral Officer must have the power and the resources to promote voting among young people and to tell them not only to go out and vote, but where to go to vote. Why is the government stubbornly insisting on enacting a law that has been rejected by all the experts, including the ones it appointed?

I would therefore like to know why we are going to vote on a bill that will immediately be challenged in the courts.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member clearly did not listen to the final moments of my remarks where I showed that Elections Canada's move to the 39 forms of identification, with specific attestation letters for those on first nations reserves, would actually allow a template that could be used now to raise turnout and participation by that community. It is interesting to note that turnouts are higher at some band council elections. There is the ability to run localized and provincial elections. We would now have a better way to do that federally.

I would invite the member to look at the Supreme Court decision that I think sets the stage to show that Bill C-23 would improve our system. The majority opinion there said it would be better to keep the inherent confidence in our system to ask someone to return to the polls with the proper registration materials than it would be to allow somebody to vote who may not be entitled to vote.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour and for Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, I want to go back to the issue of vouching. At committee, I understand that there were concerns regarding people who might have some issues with showing their address. I know there were some amendments made.

I wish the hon. member would talk a bit about vouching and tell us again what the issues are, in terms of people needing to present basic ID, the ID that is available, and a bit about the changes that we made. I think they are important changes and, more important, Canadians believe that most people should be able to produce a piece of identification showing who they are.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Neufeld report showed that vouching is extremely difficult to administer. That is what led to the 42%, or higher, error rate. In fact, if we look at multiple errors, 80% of vouching transactions had errors. Why is that? Mainly because Elections Canada officials are well-meaning, on the ground in the ridings, but they tend to work one or two days every few years. Vouching is very complicated and, really, comes from an era when people did not have as many forms of ID on them as they do on any given day.

What our amendments to Bill C-23 would do, to answer the second part of my friend's question, is address the fact that, yes, not enough of the 39 forms have ID. Even though there is the ability for attestation letters to satisfy certain groups, like students or those living in shelters, that sort of thing, we feel that the added safeguard would maximize voting by allowing someone to take an oath as per their residence that would be verified at the polls. They would still need to show identification as to who they are, so that no irregularity or fraud could result, but if they were not able to satisfy the residency requirement, an oath could be administered and they could proceed to mark their ballot. I think it is a good balance.

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

Mr. Speaker, once again, I rise to talk about Bill C-23, the unfair elections act.

We have sat through committee. We have gone through several amendments, the vast majority proposed by the government. I would love to say that I take satisfaction in knowing that two of my amendments were accepted by the Conservatives, but they were just minor fixes, inconsequential stuff. There was nothing major.

My friend is trying to egg me on. I want to thank my hon. colleague from Burlington for his encouragement in getting those amendments passed, albeit diminutive in nature.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

The amendments or the member?

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

Mr. Speaker, I opened it up for a joke, and I got one.

I want to say that the whole process was a little disappointing.

By way of explanation, it seems to me that the public pressure had been so high and so heated that changes had to be made on their part, especially on vouching. Rather than go through what one would consider the regular process of making changes and amendments at committee stage, the government did it through a pre-study, asked for by the minister and given to the Senate and the Conservative senators there. “Theatrics” is perhaps one way of describing it. However, there were some positive steps in the right direction.

My only problem is that the Conservatives did good measures to a bad bill, but unfortunately, the bill is still bad. In effect, we voted yes to the vast majority of the amendments the Conservatives proposed, but in the end, we voted against the particular clauses, and then in the end, against the bill itself because of many measures.

There is one I would like to highlight. I tried to get a question in earlier, because I wanted to ask some of my Conservative colleagues about the fact that I truly believe that in the next election, one of the biggest mistakes will be realized very quickly.

Not just on election days but on advance polling days, we are going to see a lot of seniors and students with voter information cards. Many people still call them voter identity cards. Those cards can no longer be used as a piece of identification.

Let us remember, people need three elements to qualify to vote. They have to prove that they are Canadian citizens. They have to prove that they are over 18 years of age. The third measure is that they have to prove their addresses, where they live in a riding, to vote in a particular riding. This is what could pose a problem.

I have been in four campaigns. My fifth one is coming up. I remember campaigning and going to many seniors' homes. Just prior to voting day, they would have that card sitting on the kitchen table or pinned to the refrigerator. It was always ready, right there, ready to take, ready to use when they voted. That is now going to be lost because of this. That is unfortunate, because the address on that card was actually updated more than a person's driver's licence, which is acceptable. It is one of the very few pieces of ID published by the federal government, in this case through Elections Canada, that actually has an address on it.

The way I described it in committee was that it is like a boarding pass. People cannot get on a plane without a boarding pass. In many seniors' minds, they could not vote without that card. It was a voting pass that told them that they were good to exercise their right in this democracy.

There are a lot of examples being thrown around the House about vouching, about going into a bar and vouching someone who is above the age of 19, or going across the border and vouching for a person's identity, which people cannot do, to get into another country.

Let us bear in mind that voting is a charter right we have as citizens. It is in section 3 of the charter. Some of my colleagues brought up potential challenges as a result of this. I do not doubt it, but I will not delve into that too much, because it has already been handled.

However, I would like to talk about some of the other changes.

The Chief Elections Officer is now capped at one renewable 10-year term. The opinions and guidelines were also discussed. The CEO now may inform elementary and high school students about the voting process. This is a wonderful process. Groups such as civics students run elections within the school system. These are kids below the age of majority. They go through the exercise, and Elections Canada helps subsidize their efforts to bring democracy into the classroom. It is a wonderful exercise. Although that was not allowed under the original form of Bill C-23, the Conservatives allowed an exemption to do that.

Here is my problem with that. That is good for that particular measure, but what about other measures Elections Canada hopes to invest in to further our principles of democracy by informing and teaching people about how they vote and why it is important to vote? They could be not just for secondary students but also for post-secondary students. There could be programs for first nations. There could be programs on many facets that would allow Elections Canada to bring forward democracy and to advertise in a non-partisan way. The government says that this should be left up to the parties.

I would be disappointed if the only way people could inform themselves about voting in the next election was pinned on negative advertising. We all do it, some more than others. We all partake. The problem with that is that it is not an inspirational, non-partisan way to convince people to exercise their right. I know that the fundamentals about the location and how to do it are contained in this bill, but there are certain things that have to be communicated to individuals that may not be caught up in this bill.

I will give an example. Earlier I mentioned voter information cards, the identity cards. They cannot be used to vote. It should say that on the card, because a lot of people will be disappointed. However, can Elections Canada go out and inform people specifically that they can no longer use that voter information card? These are things that were covered in this bill before. What is happening here is that we are seeing that Elections Canada is being held down in a way that is just not healthy.

Many of us travel abroad. We go for work reasons. We go to Europe. We go to Asia. I went on a recent trip to Mongolia with the Governor General. One individual said to me that they love Canada in many respects, and one of the reasons is the independence of the bureaucracy, and in particular, the independence of Elections Canada. It is a model to be used by countries that are not as experienced in democracy. Mongolia is a prime example of a young democracy. The independence of that agency is sacrosanct. This bill takes measures by which it would put it into a corner and handcuff it in a way that would not allow it to act as the agency that we so love and that many countries revere.

An example is the commissioner. We thought for sure that there was an amendment coming about this. We thought, most certainly, that there would be at least some small modicum of flexibility, but there was none, to allow the commissioner what that person asked for, which is the same type of powers contained in the Competition Act. Instead, the Conservatives have taken that position and put it into public prosecutions. This was not an exercise in independence. This was an exercise in isolation, and that is what is going to be detrimental in future investigations.

The other amendments on some of the loopholes, such as calls to raise money from people who have donated in the past, have been eliminated. That is fine.

As I said before, though, a lot of these measures have made a bad bill better, but they certainly have not made a bad bill good.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor for his speech. He worked with us in committee on Bill C-23. I greatly appreciated his various views during the clause-by-clause study phase of the proposed legislation.

I would like my colleague to speak in general about the process followed by the government in the case of Bill C-23, for example, about the fact that there was very little, if any, consultation. When electoral legislation is tabled in a country like Canada, should we encourage such an approach, specifically having the majority impose changes to such a fundamental piece of legislation as the Canada Elections Act? I would like to hear his views on the subject.

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

Mr. Speaker, I first want to congratulate my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent for pronouncing the long name of my riding correctly in one go. She is probably the only non-Speaker who has managed to do that, and I congratulate her.

I congratulate the hon. member.

I want to say that the member brings up a valid point.

Just recently I read an article in an Australian newspaper by a famous columnist in Australia who advised his government that what was happening in Canada was the way not to go. Fundamentally, he said that what Canada should have done was bring a draft of a bill to a multi-party committee on electoral matters, which exists in Australia. He urged the government to consult with other parties through the committee process. I would say that we should go even further than that and put it out to the public for their input as well.

The unfortunate thing is that the only time it was consulted on before it hit this House was within the Conservative caucus itself. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall to see what that bill looked like and how it differed from this bill. It is unfortunate, because due to the rules in the House, we could have put that bill to committee before second reading, which would have been a substantial measure, given the size of this bill. It is not as if the Conservatives have not done this before. When they first got elected, they did it with their first environmental bill.

This would have been the proper way of doing this. I thank my colleague for bringing that up.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if my colleague might provide some comment on what he said about it being a bad bill with some good amendments and that we need to underline the fact that it still is a bad bill on issues such as compelling witnesses.

Would my colleague like to provide further comment on that?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Winnipeg North, because I only touched on that briefly.

The power to compel testimony is germane to the issue we have had unfolding over the past year and a half, and that is the robocall scandal we talked about. There were a lot of people who refused to talk to the commissioner on investigative powers because they did not really have to. They were not compelled to testify. They may have known something. I do not think it was just because they were nervous. Obviously, they felt that there was something there that they did not want to talk about that made them nervous, and therefore, it should have been explored.

We had people from the Competition Bureau as witnesses, in particular the person who has the power to compel testimony by applying to a judge. I asked that person point blank in committee, “Do you use this?” Without hesitation, he said, “Absolutely. We use it all the time. It is necessary to enforce the regulations contained within the Competition Act”.

That is the Competition Act. This is the Canada Elections Act, which is connected directly to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms under section 3.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Minister of State (Western Economic Diversification)]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak once again to this bill, this time at the report stage. Given the stage that the bill is at today, it is worthwhile talking about how we got to this point and the level of consultation that went on, and to the amendments we are debating today.

First, I had a lot of feedback in my constituency about how we were talking to Canadians about this, how we were getting feedback from our constituents on the bill and how we were exposing it.

I have to congratulate the work of the committee, of people of all political stripes in here today, because committee study is often something that does not get a lot of attention in the press. A lot of Canadians are not even aware that some of our parliamentary committees sit and work. However, the committee has done a lot of work on the bill. What does that work mean and what does it look like?

First, the parliamentary committee, since the bill was introduced, had over 15 meetings to study it. The meetings are usually about 2 hours in length, but I know the committee sat late, so that is roughly 31 hours of study. A parliamentary committee comprises members from the government, as well as the official opposition and the Liberal Party. Some of our independent colleagues sat in there as well to hear the debate.

Over 72 witnesses from all different aspects of civil society from across the country participated, testified, gave their feedback and submitted written briefs. In addition to that, we have had hours of debate in the House. We have had probably well over 100 questions on the bill in the House of Commons, be it in question period. Certainly, too, we have seen some very firm public opinion research on where the public thinks some of the components for the bill specific to identification production should be, which I will speak to in a moment.

The bottom line is that all that work is what we do in the House of Commons. It is what we do as legislators and parliamentarians. We look at legislation as it is presented by the government. That is why committees exist. That is why we sit there. It is to listen to people who come to committee and then amend the bill. At report stage reading, as we have here today, we look at amendments. Some of them are quite substantive, and many of them are in direct response to some of the feedback that was heard at committee. We then have a chance to vote on the bill after the amendments have been incorporated.

It is worth taking a moment to say that we did something that resembles work on this bill. We did some pretty good work when it came to committee. I have to commend my colleague, the Minister of State for Democratic Reform, for going through all the testimony, listening to it, doing the background research, looking at different legal options of how some of that stuff could be incorporated, drafting the amendments and then presenting them so we could debate them in the House of Commons.

I want to firmly push back against anyone who says there was not consultation on the bill. If anyone wants to look at the list of witnesses, which is publicly available on the Parliament of Canada website, published on the committee website. So is the transcript, or the Hansard, of the committee. People can look at that as well and see the fact that we had over 72 witness groups. We all brought questions to those committees. I was not on the committee, but those who sat there brought questions for the witnesses based on constituent feedback. This is how the legislative process works, and it worked here.

Given that it worked and that we had a great degree of consultation, we have some amendments in front of us to debate the substance of today and then vote on later this evening.

One of the key pieces of subject matter in the debate was the voter identification component of the bill. I quite enjoy the subject matter of this legislation, so I did review a lot of the committee study myself. I found it interesting, because I do not think that there was one witness who the opposition or anyone else produced who could say that they personally would not be able to vote, given the changes proposed in the bill. That was absolutely stunning. Why is that? It is because there are 39 forms of ID that can be produced to prove identity.

A poll done by Ipsos Reid showed that over 85% of Canadians, many of those who support the opposition parties, felt it was reasonable to produce voter identification.

Further to that, after the committee study was complete, the amendment put forward on voter identification was found to be quite solid.

If there is any issue, it has to be addressed now. After doing the diligence out of the committee study, I could not find any group that would not be able to vote given the tightness and the ability that we have put around the forms of identification to be produced.

The amendment with regard to this would allow electors to vote with two pieces of identification that would prove their identity and a written oath as to place of residence and proof that another elector from the same polling division, who would provide his or her identity and residence by providing documentary proof, would also take a written oath as to the elector's residence. This new measure would allow those who did not have identification proving their residence to register and vote on polling day.

Here is the great part. Because irregularities were identified in the last election and to address that valid concern, “to ensure the integrity of the vote, new verification of potential non-compliance will be done after polling day, and an audit of compliance with registration and voting rules will be done after every election...”

We have put in an amendment that should capture everyone.

Here are some other components that I do not think have not been addressed in the debate today.

We are expanding the hours. We have added additional time for people to vote. If Elections Canada does what we are telling it to do through this bill, which is educate people on how to vote, where to vote and when to vote, then the electorate should know that it has additional time to vote and prepare to find one of those 39 different pieces of ID. We are providing better customer service to them with some of the changes laid out in the bill in terms of how Elections Canada will support the actual vote itself.

It is absolutely critical for members to take into consideration that we have expanded Canadians' accessibility to vote. Not only that, but we have enshrined it in Elections Canada's mandate. It has to provide these critical pieces of information to Canadians. It needs to focus on that information so people will know the types of identification they have to bring.

I did a lot of door knocking in my community while the bill was being debated. The only thing that came up at the door was that people were shocked they could vote without identification. It was a shocking, jarring, thing. They were surprised that people could vote without identification. I think Canadians know that providing ID is the right thing to do.

As parliamentarians, should we talk about how to produce identification, what type of identification should be provided, under what circumstances, can someone attest to the identify of a voter? Sure, let us have that discussion, but I am confident that with the amendment that has been provided today, Bill C-23 is solid in that regard. I encourage anyone who is listening to this debate to check out the 39 different forms of ID which are applicable.

I was also quite glad to see the amendment that civic education programs for primary and secondary schools would be included. That is a positive amendment.

The core thing I spoke to earlier was that it was the responsibility of candidates and civil societies to go out and convince people why they should vote rather than have a government agency tell people why they should vote. That is a core principle in the bill of which that Canadians can be proud.

It is with great enthusiasm that I support the content of Bill C-23.

I also congratulate the committee for hearing from over 72 witnesses and for taking a really robust look at this legislation and coming up with these amendments.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the minister pointing out that 72 witnesses made submissions. It is all very well to listen to them, but it would have been better, if not critically important, to try to understand them. Clearly, the Conservatives listened to what these 72 witnesses had to say, but failed to understand that they wanted the government not to proceed with this harmful electoral reform initiative.

I find the minister’s comments, and in particular her view that political parties have a duty to encourage people to vote, especially dangerous. The right to vote is not a partisan exercise, but rather a fundamental right. It should not be left to partisan organizations. Rather, the voting process should be overseen by an independent non-partisan agency responsible for ensuring the people can exercise their right to vote. Even Preston Manning stated that these initiatives were ill-advised.

How does the minister intend to encourage people, specifically first nations, which have a different political culture, to embrace that of the Conservatives because it suits their purposes from an electoral standpoint?

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Centre-North, AB]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps something was lost in the translation, but I believe my colleague just said that the bill would allow political organizations to manage the vote. If my colleague reads the form and substance of the bill, he would see that is not even close to the case.

This is all about how Elections Canada carries out its mandate. Elections Canada is still a government organization which has responsibility for various aspects of the vote.

Since I have been elected, my colleagues opposite have been talking about how we are going to proceed with democratic and electoral reform in our country. Certainly, Bill C-23 is in response to some of those questions that all of us in the House have had.

The fact is that we responded and put Bill C-23 before the House. I do not believe in just having empty rhetoric and saying that all the witnesses said that the bill should be killed. This is about coming up with concrete amendments, doing the right thing as parliamentarians and coming up with legislative change, and that is what we have done. We have excellent amendments and my colleague should support this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member made the point that the bill is in response to requests made in how Elections Canada carried out its mandate, and so changes were made.

Who made these comments to the Conservatives before the bill was tabled?

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Centre-North, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I spent a great deal of time laying out the process at the front end of my speech. The legislative process is one by which a government can present legislation to the House and then committee can respond to it through study, which is exactly what happened in this case. Over 72 witnesses came forward and responded to the legislation, which was put in front of the House and amendments were made.

My colleague opposite also understands that there is cabinet confidence after legislation has been proposed to cabinet. This is a great example that Canadians should be looking at as to how work can be done here. Government tables legislation, it goes to committee, and committee hears a bunch of witnesses and reads a bunch of different briefs. The government responds with amendments and we debate them in the House of Commons. It is a great thing of which to be a part.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour and for Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague reiterated the parliamentary process. When a bill is proposed, it goes to committee and amendments are made.

It is also important to recognized that always before bills are presented or created, there is an upfront process where Canadians often have input from across the country as to what they see in a broad vision term. Perhaps the member could speak generally on how governments actually consult even before legislation is drafted.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Centre-North, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I could do a ten-minute speech on this.

There are constituent emails, round tables, telephone town halls, one-on-one meetings, feedback from colleagues to the minister directly, caucus input and Twitter. I debated this bill on Twitter. There are so many different ways that we pull in input as parliamentarians, and that is our job. It is to synthesize it, put it into a bill and translate it to committee study. That is what happens here.

Canadians should watch this with great interest, and I certainly hope my colleagues will support the bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I feel pleased and privileged today to discuss Bill C-23 at report stage, on behalf of the constituents of Sherbrooke who elected me to this House.

It is as a result of some considerable bungling by the Conservative government that we have reached the report stage of this bill today. A few amendments have been agreed to. It still has a number of shortcomings, and I am going to have to vote against this bill. We will be voting on it this evening. Last Wednesday, the bill came back to the House after consideration in committee. After only 10 minutes of debate, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons informed us of time allocation. The next day, that is, last Thursday, we voted on a time allocation motion for it.

There has been about one day and a half of debate at report stage. However, more than 150 amendments were submitted in committee, if I remember correctly. I was not directly involved in the process, but I followed it closely, as did most of my colleagues. We have had only a day and a half to debate this bill, unfortunately.

This is the reason why I said I was privileged to speak to this bill, before it is voted on tonight at the report stage, following the work done by the committee. The committee itself was not able to perform its work as one would have wished. The committee hoped to hold hearings across Canada and hear from voters directly, since there are voters in other places besides Ottawa. There are voters everywhere in Canada, and they all have their own specific characteristics in their own communities. It would have been important for us to be able to consult them. The government refused. The government, in addition to limiting debate, even refuses to consult people outside Ottawa on this bill. As I said at the beginning of my speech, the government has made a mess of the whole process regarding this bill.

Furthermore, the bill was tabled without consultation and with a time limitation on debate, and there was not any consultation even before the bill was introduced in the House. If there was any consultation done at all, it was among the members of the Conservative Party. We doubt that the leaders of the Conservative Party were deeply involved in the drafting of this bill.

You may recall that the former minister for democratic reform at the time had announced, with much fanfare, on a Monday or Tuesday, that he was going to introduce his democratic reform bill. This was a bill we had been calling for, for some time. He announced it at a press conference, and he was very proud to say that the government was finally introducing its bill to reform the elections act, as the opposition had been calling for, for quite some time.

Ultimately, it seems that the bill was discussed in the Conservative caucus. The following Thursday, the Conservatives announced that they were going to drop the election reform bill and send it back to drafting. What happened between the time it was announced that the bill was being introduced and the time it was withdrawn? The minister decided, after consultation, that not everybody was happy with it. I assume this was in the Conservative Party, because it was after the caucus that he decided to cancel the introduction of the bill in the House.

Therefore this is a bill we never saw the original version of. Today, we are debating this version of the bill, which has probably been heavily sliced and diced or dictated by the Conservative Party members and the party leaders. We cannot guess everything that went on at the caucus meetings, but we can get an idea from all the reversals and turnarounds, as those we saw in the past around election reform.

All of that was discussed in committee recently. Nearly 70 witnesses appeared before the committee, and they were all against this bill for various reasons. There may have been someone who seemed to support the bill, but that was cutting it a bit fine, if I can put it that way.

Eventually some government amendments were adopted, but the opposition’s amendments were virtually all rejected, with a few exceptions amounting to small corrections to the wording of the bill.

We are used to this attitude from the government. The Conservatives believe that they are right and everything other people say is wrong or is politicking. If someone opposes them, it is because they are partisan. Whether it be the former auditor general, judges or former chief electoral officers, whenever an individual states an opinion publicly on a subject—a bill, in this case—the Conservatives perceive them as an enemy.

Their enemies list gets longer every time someone decides to voice their opinion, even though sometimes it is well formulated and informed, and there is nothing partisan about it. When you oppose one of the Conservatives’ proposals, you are playing politics, in their eyes, and you get added to their enemies list.

However, witnesses’ concerns were well founded. I will allude to them in my speech today in an effort to convince a few Conservative members to vote differently from the Prime Minister this evening. That is what I would most like to see happen.

Ours is a parliamentary democracy. Each member was elected in his or her riding. In each riding, 100,000 people voted, and the makeup of this House reflects the outcome of the vote. I hope that the members of all parties who were elected to the House will vote this evening according to their conscience and their convictions. I hope that a handful of Conservatives will vote against the government’s bill because it is possible for them to do so.

Members were elected in their ridings to represent their constituents. Once in the House, these members vote according to the views of the majority of their constituents. Personally, I know full well what the views of my constituents are on this matter, and that will affect how I vote this evening. I hope that the Conservatives and my colleagues across the political spectrum will also vote according to the will of the majority of their constituents. I assume that many Conservatives will vote against the Conservative bill this evening, that they will listen to reason and that ultimately they will find a way to improve upon the bill’s provisions, however difficult that might be.

Tonight’s votes will be very important because the constitutionally guaranteed right to vote is on the line. Some government members drew comparisons between this and the voting methods employed by political parties during leadership races and party fundraising tactics used in leadership races. They were confusing many issues. However, there are no comparisons to be made when it comes to the right to vote in federal elections.

A person’s right to choose who will govern the country is unassailable. However, I am worried that this right is now being threatened, given that the bill would eliminate the ability of a voter to prove their identity through vouching. At present, when voters are unable to provide proof of their identity at a polling station, they can get someone to vouch for them, thereby ensuring their constitutional right to vote. Without this option, I am worried that this fundamental right will be called into question. I hope the Conservatives will realize this and vote against the proposed electoral reform this evening.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent speech. He talked about the charter and the right to vote. Could he tell the House and the other members how this electoral “deform” will negatively impact the right to vote in Canada?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Vaudreuil—Soulanges for his question, which gives me the opportunity to finish my speech about protecting the fundamental right to vote.

Vouching is used when a voter shows up at a polling station and realizes that he or she does not meet the identification criteria. These criteria can sometimes be complicated and voters do not necessarily know them in advance. Not all Canadians will show up at the polling station with all of the proper pieces of ID.

If we allow vouching, all Canadians will have the opportunity to vote when they arrive at the polling station. It will enable them to retain that fundamental right. If someone cannot have the ID required, they still have the right to vote. We cannot prevent that person from voting because they do not have a piece of ID that cannot be obtained in a few hours at a government office. This person needs to retain their fundamental right to vote.

This bill is destroying the right to vote in Canada. This is unfortunate. I hope that the Conservatives will join us when we vote this evening.

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I think there was an underlying message in his speech. There is a debate between the strong desire to control everything that happens and the desire to make it easy to vote. I think that as elected members of Parliament, it is our duty to make voting more accessible.

What does my colleague think about this dichotomy between exercising absolute control over what is done and making it easier to vote? What does he prefer?

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

Mr. Speaker, I would prefer to make it easier to vote. Unfortunately, the Conservatives are imposing restrictions on voting and making it more complicated. I am concerned that there will be a court challenge to some of the provisions in the bill, which will be the new elections law once it is passed.

It is very unfortunate that the government, although aware of this possibility, did not try to remedy the situation in committee. The government is always trying to take more control. In the end, some people will lose out and Canadians will have fewer options in a number of areas, including, in this case, when it comes to voting.

The major problem with all of this is that the government thinks that all Canadians are fraudsters. Consequently, it has to do everything it can to prevent fraud. We do have to be careful and put measures in place. However, after all the debate about the possibility of vouching, I feel that the Conservatives believe that all Canadians are potential fraudsters who will attack the system, which has to be made as complicated as possible.

We are headed in the wrong direction. We have to make it easier to vote and have fairly strict rules to ensure the integrity of our elections, which is vital to the proper functioning of our democracy.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

I would like to remind all hon. members that when the Chair calls to resume debate, it is the responsibility of the member to come to stand in the House at that point and not to count on the list. The list that we have is for advisory purposes and does not trump those who come to their feet.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Pickering—Scarborough East.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise in the House today to speak in the third reading debate of Bill C-23, the fair elections act.

This important legislation would ensure that much-needed reforms are brought to a number of areas of electoral law in the Canada Elections Act.

The government committed, in the 2013 Speech from the Throne, to introduce comprehensive changes to Canada's election law. With the fair elections act, we have fulfilled that promise. The bill's measures are common sense, reasonable, and Canadians agree with them.

I want to remind the House that our government has been clear from the start that it would listen carefully to the debates and witnesses, and consider reasonable amendments that would improve the bill. On April 25, the Minister of State for Democratic Reform announced that the government would support amendments on a wide range of subjects dealt with by the fair elections act—14 areas, in fact.

My remarks today will focus on some of these amendments and will demonstrate why the fair elections act would be made even better with these changes. In particular, I would like to highlight the importance of upholding the integrity of elections and of protecting Canadians' right to vote. These are objectives of the bill that all hon. members should join me in supporting wholeheartedly.

One excellent example of how Bill C-23 would put those important objectives into practice is the new voter contact registry. This initiative would prevent fraudsters from taking advantage of communications technology to deceive Canadians out of their votes.

Another very important example of how the fair elections act would uphold the integrity of the vote and protect Canadians' rights to vote is the bill's provisions on voter identification, as modified by the amendments that were passed by the procedure and House affairs committee.

I will return to these topics a little later.

Before I turn to some specific amendments, I would like to reiterate that the proposals in the fair elections acts are reasonable, common sense, and Canadians support them. I would like to remind the House that recent polls show that Canadians agree with the measures in the fair elections act. In particular, 87% believe that requiring voters to prove their identity is reasonable, and 70% believe it is acceptable to eliminate vouching.

Most of the amendments that I am about to describe respond to various commentaries and suggestions that have been made during numerous hours of witness testimony in the procedure and House affairs committee, as well as many further hours of witness testimony in the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee.

Such an airing of opinions and constructive debate is a sign of a healthy democracy. I am proud to say that this legislation would strengthen our democratic practices.

The first two of the government-supported amendments to Bill C-23 that I will describe today concern voter identification practices. Canadians should have complete confidence that their federal electoral system would operate with the integrity that they expect and deserve, and the requirement to show identification is a key part of ensuring that is the case. While the fair elections act would require people to show identification proving who they are before they vote, the government supported an amendment to assist those whose address is not on their identification to register and vote.

Specifically, the amendment would allow electors whose identification does not have an address, to vote by providing two pieces of identification that prove their identity and by signing a written oath as to their residence, provided that an additional safeguard is met. The additional safeguard that would be required in such circumstances is that another elector from the same polling division, who proves his or her own identity and residence by providing sufficient documentary proof, must also take a written oath as to the residence of the elector whose identification does not have an address specified on it.

To ensure the integrity of the vote, new procedures to detect potential non-compliance will be done after polling day. In particular, Elections Canada will be required to check the list of those who signed the oaths as to residence, to make sure that no one voted more than once or attested for another elector without being eligible to do so. Moreover, a mandatory extended audit of compliance will be done after every election in order to ensure that the rules are followed.

Unlike the current rules for vouching, every voter will now need to show identification, without exception. The message to voters from these measures is “Get identification. From now on, you will need it to vote”. Canadians can choose from 39 allowable forms of identification. Government-issued photo ID is not required.

The next government-supported amendment to Bill C-23 that I will mention today also relates to voter identification requirements.

The amendment will clarify that all of those who apply for a special ballot and vote at the office of the returning officer must prove their identity and residence in the same way as they would at the polling station.

A reasonable concern was expressed that the fair elections act would, in practice, create two processes, one for local electors and another for electors who are away from their electoral district. This amendment will have the benefit of ensuring consistency in the identification procedures that are practised for voting at all polling stations, and at the office of the returning officer.

I believe the amendments to Bill C-23's voter identification measures that I have mentioned will further strengthen the needed reforms that this bill brings to the current voter identification process.

The next amendment to the bill that was introduced by the government that I wish to touch on today concerns the public information and education mandate of the Chief Electoral Officer.

This amendment clarifies that the Chief Electoral Officer may communicate with the public, but where he advertises to inform electors about the exercise of their democratic rights, he can only do so on how to be a candidate; when, where, and how to vote; and what tools are available to assist disabled electors.

That policy recognizes that there are two things that drive people to vote, motivation and information. Motivation comes from parties and candidates giving people a reason to vote. Information should come from Elections Canada on where, when, and how to vote.

In other words, political parties and candidates appropriately provide the “why” and Elections Canada appropriately provides the “how”.

The government also supported amendments to ensure that the Chief Electoral Officer knows that he has always had the freedom to speak or report on any matter. There was some confusion on this when the bill was introduced. These amendments will clarify that issue. Furthermore, amendments stipulate that the Chief Electoral Officer may support civic education programs that explain voting for primary and secondary school students.

The next of the government amendments that I will mention today deals with the central poll supervisors. The bill originally sought to implement a recommendation of the procedure and House affairs commitment that central poll supervisors be appointed in the same manner as the deputy returning officers. Nevertheless, the government has, as promised, listened, and has decided to not proceed with this particular reform.

Another of the government's amendments was to include a provision requiring that the chief electoral officer consult the Commissioner of Canada Elections before issuing an advance ruling or interpretation note. The amendments also provided more time for the Chief Electoral Officer before he has to issue an advance ruling or interpretation note, while reducing the consultation period with the registered parties.

Some reasonably pointed out that the timeframe set out for the Chief Electoral Officer to fulfill those duties might be insufficient to enable them to be completed appropriately. The government listened, and supported amendments to deal with this issue.

Moreover, amendments to the advanced ruling will give them precedence. This will ensure a higher degree of consistency and predictability with respect to those instruments.

It is undeniable that the amendments I have just outlined for the House demonstrate conclusively that, as promised, this government was following the debate on the fair elections act with openness to ideas that would strengthen this common sense bill. The fair elections air was a terrific piece of legislation when introduced, and it has now been improved. We are moving forward with this valuable legislation.

I hope hon. members will join me in supporting the important reforms of the fair elections act.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments, but having said that, it bears repeating that it is important to recognize that we are changing election laws. When election laws are changed, there is a certain expectation that the public as a whole has of the government of the day; that is, that it is being perceived as being done properly, and the process is in place that ensures it is not just one entity, in this case the Conservative Party, that is pushing through amendments.

What would the member think if we heard of another country where the governing party was the only party forcing changes to election laws? I suspect the member would speak out against that, believing that if we are going to change election laws, that there is a responsibility of the government of the day to work with different stakeholders, including opposition parties; the election authority, in particular Elections Canada, which is world renowned in terms of its true independence; and the Commissioner of Canada Elections. There are stakeholders who should have been consulted prior to the legislation coming into the House. At the very least, the government should have shown a clear demonstration of consensus building before bringing in legislation and then using its majority government ultimately to pass it.

Content aside, strictly on process, does the member not recognize that there is something wrong in terms of the process? With hindsight, Conservatives could have done a much better job in bringing the bill to the House.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Canada is one of the greatest democracies. We follow procedures according to our rules and our laws. I do not think we need to delay the implementation of the fair elections act. We are evolving in time. We are doing the right things, and we have the procedures for that.

I do not think we ever break any rules of the Parliament of Canada. We can use the rules which are enshrined in the 1,294 pages in O'Brien and Bosc. I think we advance forward with these procedures. I do not think that we are in an undemocratic country or are using undemocratic procedures.

I do not like hon. members trying to show our procedures in Parliament as being like other countries, dictatorial countries. In this country, we have the best laws, and Parliament is improving them in the best manner.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as my colleague probably knows, often the people who take the Canadian Forces recruits' course are in limbo. They do not have a permanent assignment and so they do not have an address for a certain period of time.

Does my colleague believe it is fair that Canadian Forces recruits cannot vote because they are temporarily unable to provide an address, yet they will spend the rest of their lives defending the government decisions that are imposed on them?

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague mentioned the armed forces. Both of us served in the armed forces, and we know that if someone wants to enter a base, that person needs to have identification at least. Another individual cannot vouch for them to enter an institution.

This common sense legislation asking voters for identification is commonly used everywhere in the country if an individual wants to access any kind of institution. I do not think this is a great issue. People need to show identification. Then comes the address. People going to a polling station will be able to show somebody proof, who will vouch for their address and verify it. The amendment that was proposed and then accepted by the committee responds to the hon. member's question.

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, almost two years ago the NDP tabled a motion demanding more powers for the Chief Electoral Officer, and for the government to present a bill within six months. This motion was unanimously adopted by the House.

In the fall of 2012, in response to the Conservatives' non-action on the bill, my colleague, the member for Toronto—Danforth, presented Bill C-453, which proposed changes to the Canada Elections Act to prevent and punish electoral fraud carried out through fraudulent phone calls. Many of the provisions he suggested are now included in Bill C-23. There is no denying that those concessions by the Conservatives prove the effectiveness of a strong opposition by the NDP and by Canadians, who came together and stood up for our democracy.

Yes, as a result of this strong opposition, the Conservatives have backed down on some of the fundamental aspects of the unfair elections act. Unfortunately, they have also shut down the study of this bill with half of the NDP's common sense amendments still under debate. In good faith, the NDP proposed close to 100 ways to improve this widely denounced bill, but the Conservatives rejected all of them.

The Conservatives have a track record of breaking election laws. The Minister of State for Democratic Reform has been attacking Elections Canada for many years. Bill C-23 clearly attacks Elections Canada by cutting its powers, and this is unacceptable.

Removing powers from the Chief Electoral Officer instead of increasing his power is a huge mistake. Placing the Commissioner of Canada Elections under the Director of Public Prosecutions and rejecting NDP amendments that would have given investigators the tools they need to crack down on electoral fraud is another huge mistake.

With Bill C-23, the commissioner would no longer be part of Elections Canada. The reality is that there is a necessary working relationship between the commissioner and Elections Canada, which includes daily consultation. This change would cause a great loss of expertise and knowledge transfer. Sharing information is vital there, and I am glad that after the NDP pushed back, a government amendment at committee would now allow information-sharing between the Chief Electoral Officer and the commissioner.

The minister has been misleading Canadians into thinking it is a requirement of independence that the commissioner be separated from the Chief Electoral Officer. It is entirely appropriate that the commissioner be integrated within the structure of Elections Canada. In Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, and Quebec, the chief electoral officers assume all functions.

Thanks to the strong NDP opposition, the government also scaled back its attack on the Chief Electoral Officer's ability to engage in public education, though the government amendment only half removes this new muzzle. The Chief Electoral Officer is now limited to advertising only certain aspects of the electoral process, those being when, where, and how to vote. He is also limited to participating in voter engagement programs only at the elementary and secondary levels. Elections Canada is still prohibited from partnering with other groups, such as university-level programs to engage youth aged 18 to 25 to vote. Some reports suggest that a significant number of young people who pass on voting the first time they are offered a chance are likely not to vote, ever, in their lifetimes. Limiting the Chief Electoral Officer to engage in public education is certainly not a way to increase voter participation, especially among young new voters and demographics that tend to have a lower turnout, such as first nation communities.

The Chief Electoral Officer would also need to seek Treasury Board approval to hire technical experts for conducting research and delivering reports such as the Neufeld report and the IRPP report on fraudulent robocalls in the 2011 election. This is sheer government interference with the work of an officer of Parliament.

Thanks to the NDP and civil society opposition, the Conservatives have amended the bill to allow vouching for addresses. However, this bill still prohibits the voter information card to be used to prove addresses as one of the two pieces of ID.

Voter information cards benefit those people who face challenges in establishing their address when it is time to vote: youth on campus, seniors, and aboriginal people. Prohibiting the voter information card from being used as a piece of ID in an election would deter electors from voting, as indicated by the Chief Electoral Officer.

In fact, the Conservatives should have looked into the Chief Electoral Officer's recommendations for prevention measures, such as providing more training and information to elections staff and volunteers and the need for better recruitment and advance recruitment of election workers. Instead, the Conservatives rejected an NDP amendment on this.

I would like to underscore the fact that some key elements are missing in Bill C-23. This bill would not give more power to the Chief Electoral Officer to request financial documents to ensure political entities comply with their obligations. This was in our 2012 motion. Instead, the bill would grant more power to the auditors hired by political parties.

The Elections Canada commissioner had asked for powers to compel witnesses. The commissioner, who would now be under the Director of Public Prosecutions, would not be granted such powers. Several provincial election laws grant chief electoral officers or commissioners the power to compel persons to appear before them and provide information or produce records. This laws are in place in Alberta, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, and Yukon.

Canadians should not trust the Conservatives to stop fraud. Canadians deserve better.

I would like to share some very interesting facts and quotes from witnesses who were questioned by my colleagues in committee.

To put this in context, only 70 people were able to speak against Bill C-23 in committee, and only 22 committee meetings were set aside for an issue as important as changing our elections act. It is sad that the Conservatives think that reforming our country's democracy is only worth 22 committee meetings. We were given just 40 hours or so to study such an important bill.

There are plenty of quotes from people who shared our opinion. They said that major changes needed to be made to the bill. There are good things in the bill, but as parliamentarians, we have to pick bills apart to make sure that they will improve people's lives and democracy in our country. There are already so many people who do not vote. We have to ask ourselves whether this bill will enable more people to exercise their right to vote. Unfortunately, I do not think that we will be able to answer that question.

Just outside my riding, there is an Indian reserve. I would like to quote Teresa Edwards, who was asked about aboriginal voting. When the subject of vouching came up, she was told how great it was that people could use any of 39 pieces of ID to vote. Here is what Teresa Edwards said about that:

...it shows the amount of privilege that's in this room that people have no comprehension of how difficult it could be for aboriginal people to obtain identification.

...This will only further put up barriers for aboriginal people and it can't help but make someone wonder, is that the intent? Is this really democracy or is the intent to actually limit aboriginal voting in the next election?

It is a shame, because we are wondering the same thing about this government. We get the impression that the government does not like some people and that it is trying to prevent them from voting. That is what Ms. Edwards was suggesting in her comments to the committee. To me, that is serious.

As I said in my speech, right now, most young people in our country do not vote.

Last weekend, I met some young people in my riding and most of them told me that they were not sure whether they were going to vote and that they do not trust the current government. They wondered whether things would be different with another government.

I tried to explain to them that the NDP is different. We are not here for politics, power, money or success. We were all elected on a wave. No one knew we were going to be elected. We are here to defend values. That is what I tried to explain to them. It is interesting to note that these are people who did not vote. As I was saying, there are many studies.

Apathy is Boring is a group I have met with often and they tell me that the danger is that people who do not vote when they first become eligible to do so will likely never vote. It is therefore crucial that the government realize how important it is to get young people and first nations to vote and why this type of bill is sad for our democracy.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's speech was excellent.

I have a question. My colleague was a teacher before becoming an MP. This bill would prevent the Chief Electoral Officer from implementing public education programs.

Does she think that the government should reconsider its partnership approach with youth groups? She mentioned Apathy is Boring. Other groups would like to partner with Elections Canada to teach young people about voting. Perhaps she could comment on that?

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question because that is where I was going with my speech.

It is vital for young people be able to vote. First, their vision for our country and their future is not at all that of the government that currently represents them. Second, we have to educate people. Many seniors vote today because they were taught to vote. It was important and it was a fundamental value of society. They voted the first time they had the opportunity and they continued to vote.

It is important to partner with groups that have that mission. Apathy is Boring is one such group. There are many others that believe that young people do not vote today mainly because they are not asked to vote. When the NDP youth caucus met with them, they said that if you want young people to vote, you have to ask them to vote. That is the first condition. Creating projects that interest them is the second condition. There has to be a platform for youth. However, I repeat that the first condition is to ask them to go and vote.

If we do nothing and do not partner with groups on the ground, who seek out young people and can talk to them and understand how to get them interested in democracy, unfortunately we will be headed towards a decline in voter participation. That is dangerous for our democracy and for our future. If we brag about being the best democracy in the world, it is because people vote. If there are no groups to encourage them, young people may no longer vote. It is important to maintain our partnerships with groups that focus on young people.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to pick up on the point of democracy and focus in on the issue of process, putting the content of the legislation to the side for now.

In the context of what I indicated to a Conservative speaker, which is if we observed a country, another democracy outside of Canada, where we saw a governing party not working in any fashion whatsoever with any of the other stakeholders and proclaiming itself to be a democracy changing election laws, I suspect we would be outraged. We would be outraged at how a country would go about changing election laws and not having any real consultation with other political entities, whether they are parties, or independent election authorities and so forth.

Would she provide her perspective on how she believes other countries look at the process of how Canada, using a majority Conservative government, is pushing through legislation?

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my Liberal colleague for his question.

I think it is disgraceful that the government is using its majority to change laws as fundamental as those associated with our democratic system. What is even more regrettable is the fact that it is not surprising.

Since I became an MP in the House, I have seen the government use its majority again and again to push through bills that Canadians do not want. If every opposition party disapproves of a bill, at some point, the government should begin to wonder. It is not a question of ideology; it is about changing our laws for the better.

However, this government uses so many time allocation motions that it has set a record. It is not even taking the time to listen to the amendments we put forward.

During the clause-by-clause study of this bill, half of the clauses could not be debated because the Conservatives decided that they did not want to take the time.

That is frustrating, and I think that the international community could easily say that we are not truly democratic.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-23, the fair elections act.

The bill would fulfill a commitment made by our government during the last Speech from the Throne and in it our government committed to bringing forward a comprehensive election reform proposal that would protect the votes of Canadians at the polls.

The fair elections act would ensure that constituents in Etobicoke Centre, along with all Canadians, would be in charge of democracy by putting special interests on the sidelines and the rule-breakers out of business.

It would also make it harder for people to break the law. It would close loopholes in big money. It would impose tough new penalties on political imposters and those rogue calls and it would empower the Commissioner of Canada Elections with sharper teeth, a longer reach and a freer hand.

The fair elections act would make our laws clear and easy to follow. It would make life harder for election law-breakers and easier for the honest people to take part in democracy.

I believe Canadians agree that our current system can be improved. For example, 87% of Canadians believe it is reasonable to require someone to prove his or her identity and address before voting. Based on my conversations with constituents in Etobicoke Centre, I would also submit that a majority of my constituents would agree with this view. This is why I am proud that our government is committed to enhancing our electoral laws and protecting the integrity of each and every ballot.

What I would not support is the NDP's suggestion that people should not require any ID to vote. The fair elections act would prohibit the use of vouching and voter information cards as replacements for acceptable ID.

Studies commissioned by Elections Canada demonstrate mass irregularities in the use of vouching and high rates of inaccuracy on voter information cards. Under the act, voters would continue to have 39 different forms of authorized identification to choose from to prove their identity and to prove their residence.

Our government has also recently announced that under the fair elections act, electors with no identification that proves their residence would be allowed to vote with two pieces of identification that prove their identity and a written oath as to their residence provided that another elector from the same polling division, who proves his or her identity and residence by providing documentary proof, would also take a written oath as to the elector's residence. These changes are abundantly fair and reasonable.

Stopping possible election fraud is just one of the many positive changes that the fair elections act proposes to make. The act would protect voters from rogue calls and from political imposters by punishing those who would attempt to deceive Canadians. For example, Bill C-23 would create a mandatory public registry for mass calling and impose prison time for impersonating election officials. It would also increase penalties for deceiving people out of their votes.

The fair elections act would give the Commissioner of Canada Elections sharper teeth, a longer reach and a freer hand to ensure we would have strong elections law enforcement.

The bill would allow for small donations coming in and keep big money out of our elections by ensuring donation limits could not be circumvented. Big money from special interests can drown out the voices of everyday citizens, like people in Etobicoke Centre, who have supported me, and those constituents who come to my office often looking to discuss current legislation or seeking assistance on a variety of issues. Theirs are the voices that should be reflected in the House.

Lastly, the bill would provide better customer service for voters by adding another advanced poll day and ensuring Canadians would know where to vote, when to vote and what ID to bring with them.

The fair elections act would also explicitly require Elections Canada to inform disabled voters of the extra help available to help them vote.

I believe the majority of my constituents would agree with me in that the fair elections act would make life harder for election law-breakers and easier for honest people to take part in our democratic process.

I do want to address something about our youth. I reach out to schools and to various groups in my constituency and beyond when I am asked to speak for a variety of reasons. I tell people, including at citizenship ceremonies, that citizenship comes with duties and responsibilities. One of those duties is to vote. I have said that before and I have said that often. I tell that to school groups, to youth, and to people frequently when I speak in front of public groups. It is very important that people understand that, to make sure that our democracy works as it has.

Make no mistake, Canada is a heaven on earth. There are people clamouring to come to our country because of what we have, because of the strength of our democracy, and how hard we work to ensure that each and every person is enfranchised with their vote.

I am very proud of the bill. I am very proud to stand for it. I am very proud to speak for it.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague a very simple question. In 2011, the Chief Electoral Officer allowed voter information cards to be used as proof of address. However, to supplement that, individuals also had to have a piece of ID with their name on it.

Now that voter cards cannot be used any more, people will have to have two pieces of identification: one with their address and another with their name. Of the 39 acceptable pieces of ID on the list, only a tiny percentage include an address. It is extremely difficult for the most vulnerable segments of our society, such as students, seniors and aboriginal peoples, to obtain that type of ID.

What will he say to the Canadians who are listening and who may be denied the right to vote? I know that there are a lot of people listening, including some from his riding. What will he say to those people who will not be able to vote in 2015?

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member partially answered the question herself. There are 39 different forms of ID that can be used. The vast majority of people in our country agree that valid forms of ID should be applied. It is reasonable. There are all sorts of other things that we do in life to prove our identity and where we live.

The accommodation made in the bill to allow an oath to be signed and proof provided through the two pieces of ID is very reasonable. It came out of hours and hours of testimony before committee. The minister was very broad-minded in looking at the bill and making changes that accommodated these issues that were brought up in testimony before committee.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise again in the House to speak about the bill on electoral reform. Unfortunately, the bill quickly got on the wrong track. Furthermore, there has been no real consultation on this bill.

The bill affects the quality of democratic life and the rules that ensure fair representation of constituents in Parliament. The bill was written on the back of an envelope and in line with purely partisan interests. No time has really been taken to speak to Canadians or Quebeckers about it, to hear from experts or to hold public consultations on the bill.

In fact, they have pulled a rabbit out of a hat. Even the person who is the most knowledgeable about elections in Canada, the Chief Electoral Officer, has not been consulted. This is a uniquely Conservative bill, made by Conservatives for Conservatives.

A number of colleagues mentioned today that if this kind of process were going on in a foreign country, we would be asking ourselves a number of serious questions about the validity of an electoral reform package that appears tailor-made to suit the party in power and favour it. There has been no consultation with the opposition parties nor with Canadians. Right from the start, the whole process has been flawed. What was the result? Work that has been entirely botched.

It is sad to see, perhaps for the first times in Canadian history, a bill that is close to what we call voter suppression in the United States. In the U.S. they take steps to try to prevent people from exercising their right as citizens to choose the people who will be passing legislation over the next four years, if there is a majority government.

It is an attack on democratic rights and on clearly targeted and vulnerable groups, such as seniors, students and first nations peoples.

The NDP, the official opposition, has stood up. It is a rare thing in this Parliament, but we have managed to bring enough pressure to bear on the government for it to back down from some of the most deplorable aspects of the bill. As the leader of my party said, what was at the beginning a very bad bill is today only a bad bill.

The bill is not a good bill, but for some situations we have been able to prevent the worst, specifically with regard to allowing certain people to vote with someone to vouch for them. There is still the issue of a personal relationship with the registered voter; we will see how that turns out on the ground on election day or on advance polling days.

Members of the NDP believe it is important not to prevent the 120,000 people who voted through vouching in the last election, three years ago, from exercising their right to vote. The NDP can take credit for this, because we showed the Conservatives that this was clearly absurd and unnecessary, since it was not based on any evidence or proof of fraud—apart from the imaginary fraud in the mind of a Conservative backbencher. We managed to save this system.

However, the bill is an attack on democracy and on the principle of equality among citizens. Earlier today, I heard my colleague proudly say that they would be keeping big money out of elections. I agree with the principle that money should not be able to have undue influence over politicians or the outcome of an election. If they want to keep big money out of elections, they should reduce the limits on electoral contributions, not increase them.

By raising the maximum annual donation to $1,500 from $1,200, the Conservatives are going in the exact opposite direction from what they say. My colleagues opposite probably have a number of friends who are able to write cheques for $1,500. I have the feeling this may benefit the Conservative Party. Moreover, if a candidate can invest $5,000 in their own campaign, that will give people who have the ability to do that an unfair advantage.

The rules of the game are being interfered with and twisted in favour of people who have financial resources that are well out of reach of the average Canadian and Quebecker.

This is one of our serious concerns. This is one of the reasons why, as progressives, we are going to fundamentally oppose this election reform, or “deform”.

Given that there was no consultation, that a gag order was imposed in the House, that a gag order was also imposed in committee, that not all of the opposition’s amendments could be considered, and that the Conservatives wanted to go at top speed and botch the job with a bill that in fact changes the fundamental law of our democracy, there are things we were not even able to discuss. The public might have wanted to hear some discussion of proportional voting.

I think people who are frustrated with having a majority government that was elected with only 38% of the votes cast might think about the possibility of having a proportional voting system that would result in representation in the House that is closer to the will of the people.

A first past the post voting system produces such distorted results that the winner’s bonus is truly disproportionate. A large majority of Canadians voted against the Conservative Party three years ago, and they ended up with a majority Conservative government. There is something broken in this system. Canada is one of the rare countries in the world that still use this old voting system.

It might have been worthwhile to discuss a regional mixed-member proportional voting system, something like what there is in Germany. The NDP proposed an amendment in committee that was struck down because the Conservatives did not want to hear anything about it. This is extremely worrisome and it is a shame, because this is a missed opportunity. Reforms of the Elections Act are rare. It is not something we do every year.

How could the Conservatives have failed to understand that people could use the voter identification card issued by Elections Canada and delivered to us in our mailboxes as proof of residence, when it is accompanied by another identity card that does not show the address? That is extremely practical. It is widely used, particularly in senior citizens’ homes where people are able to go down the stairs or take the elevator to go and vote, because the polling station is in their building. Those people often do not have driver’s licences or the documents on the long list the Conservatives have given us. The same thing is true for aboriginal populations.

Let us read what Mr. Mayrand, the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, had to say last March about the accuracy of the information on the voter identification card:

It is worth noting that the VIC is the only document issued by the federal government that includes address information. The Canadian passport, for example, does not include an address. In fact, with an accuracy rate of 90%, the VIC is likely the most accurate and widely available government document.

I see no reason why we would deny ourselves that. Mr. Mayrand goes on to say:

During the election period, revision activities at the local level also increase the accuracy of the VIC. This likely makes it a more current document than even the driver's licence....

It is essential to understand that the main challenge for our electoral democracy is not voter fraud, but voter participation. I do not believe that if we eliminate vouching [at the time, vouching was still prohibited] and the VIC as proof of address we will have in any way improved the integrity of the voting process. However, we will certainly have taken away the ability of many qualified electors to vote.

Once again, the particularly scandalous thing about the bill we have before us is that it makes it harder for people who would like to go and vote in good faith and would like to keep using the little card distributed by Elections Canada.

There are many other things that should have been changed or amended in this bill. How can Elections Canada have lost the power to investigate? How can the Commissioner of Canada Elections be moved under the jurisdiction of the Director of Public Prosecutions, when everything was working well and in sync? Elections Canada is being stripped of its investigative powers. As well, the act is not getting enough teeth and strength to give Elections Canada the ability, as part of an investigation, to compel a witness to come answer questions from Elections Canada in order to find out what really happened. Why not give Elections Canada sufficient powers to be able to shed light on what happened?

If Elections Canada had had the power to compel witnesses in the robocall scandal, I think we would have found out exactly what happened.

Today, Elections Canada has hit a wall because the Conservative minister is refusing to give the agency the tools it needs to do its work.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie for his speech.

I want to talk about something very specific that happened in committee and that I would like to hear his thoughts on. He spoke in detail about the use of the voter information card. He even quoted the Chief Electoral Officer, who explained why the voter information card was very accurate and was a very good document in general.

The Conservatives did not want to agree to our amendments to reinstate the voter information card as an accepted piece of ID. Then, in committee, when we realized that they would not change their minds on using the voter information card, we proposed a new amendment to write in bold on the voter information card that voters could not use the document to vote. That way, people would not assume that they could use the card to vote and they would make sure they had the right pieces of ID.

I do not think there is any downside to that and I am still dumbfounded by the fact that the Conservatives voted against that amendment.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague. I was not aware of this detail, which is actually more than just a detail.

It is indicative of the primary purpose of the bill, which is to prevent people from voting and to throw up roadblocks in front of them. In real life, if average Canadians are used to going to vote with the card that comes from Elections Canada and then all of a sudden, once they are at the polling station, they are told that it is not sufficient and that they need other ID, then they are going to return home and I would be very surprised if they went all the way back to the polling station again to vote.

That is a shame because this will likely happen to thousands or even tens of thousands of Canadians who will not have been properly informed, as this amendment would have made it possible to do, by indicating on the card at least something about the identification they may need. Although the voter information card can no longer be used for the purpose for which it was created, it could have still been used to tell Canadians that the procedure and the rules have changed.

It is also a great pity that, with the exception of certain groups, Elections Canada will no longer be able to spend money or conduct campaigns to encourage people to vote, even though voter turnout in Canada has been plummetting for decades. It means we are denying ourselves a major voice that could encourage Canadians to exercise their right to vote. I do not understand why the Conservatives are going down this road.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague on his speech.

It was very beneficial to hear the Chief Electoral Officer's quote about voter cards. It would have been even more beneficial if the Chief Electoral Officer had been consulted. The Conservatives could have learned something. However, that is a topic for another time.

Does my colleague think it is possible to trust a government that was found guilty of several counts of electoral fraud? There was the in and out scandal, of course, but we also know that many government MPs were accused of electoral fraud in relation to their spending. Then there were also the robocalls.

Is it possible to trust a government that does not obey the law or uphold democratic tradition? Why does this government always try to push ahead even though it knows full well that, according to our country's democratic tradition, electoral reform is usually agreed upon by the majority, out of respect for all Canadians?

I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on this government, which has been found guilty of fraud and could not care less about democratic tradition.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her question, but I do not think the answer will surprise anyone.

I do not trust the Conservative Party in general, and especially not when it comes to reforming the Elections Act. They are repeat offenders. They have been caught red-handed many times. Here are some examples: the minister for the Labrador region who had to resign, the member for Peterborough who had to leave his caucus because there were problems with his election spending, the in and out scandal, and the robocalls saga—in which a Federal Court judge proved that the Conservative Party database had been used to trick people into going to the wrong polling station.

No, I do not trust the Conservative Party to manage the economy, to take care of people, to manage our health care system or to reform the electoral system. Letting them make the laws is like asking the fox to guard the henhouse.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to speak to the fair elections act.

The fair elections act is a bill that would make significant changes to Canada's election laws. It would close loopholes to big money, impose new penalties on political imposters who make rogue calls, and empower law enforcement with sharper teeth, a longer reach, and a freer hand. The bill would also implement 38 of the Chief Electoral Officer's recommendations.

As a member of the procedure and House affairs committee that studied this bill in great detail, I can say that through the committee process, we were able to make a great bill even better with a number of amendments made at committee through the work that we did there. A very thorough study was done and a very thorough debate happened around the bill at committee and in the House of Commons.

There are two particular elements of the bill that I would like to address in my brief remarks here today.

The first is a key change that the fair elections act would make in putting in place a very clear process that the Chief Electoral Officer would have to follow when issuing changes to the rules governing elections.

Everyone in the House has obviously been through an election or two, and in some cases many more than that. Some of us have probably encountered situations in which the rules were not as clear as we would have hoped. Complicated rules can certainly bring about unintentional breaches. They can even intimidate everyday Canadians from taking part in democracy. That is unfortunate in a democracy. We want to encourage more people to get involved, make it easier for them to stay involved, and reduce the risks of transgressing the rules.

The bill before us would make the rules for elections clear, predictable, and easy to follow. Just as importantly, it would provide a system whereby the Chief Electoral Officer could help citizens avoid making mistakes.

The bill contains provisions that would improve the transparency and consistency of election rules. It would do this by drawing on the successes of other government agencies in improving their own regulatory regimes through more communication and greater transparency. They have put in place a system of notices to advise regulated entities on how the law applies to them. These generally take the form of guidelines and interpretation notes or bulletins. For example, the Canada Revenue Agency routinely publishes bulletins to advise taxpayers on how it will interpret and apply specific provisions of income tax law.

These procedures help to clarify the rules. They establish an accessible and transparent body of information to help interpret the rules. They enable interested parties to make preliminary inquiries without prejudice to explore how the rules are likely to be interpreted.

Under the bill before us, a registered party would be able to request from the Chief Electoral Officer an advance ruling or a written interpretation of questions regarding the Canada Elections Act. The Chief Electoral Officer would be required to respond within 60 days of the request. The bill would provide a further 30-day notice period before the ruling or interpretation would be formally issued. This would enable all parties to respond to the new rule.

Advance rulings issued by the Chief Electoral Officer would be binding on him and on the commissioner of elections. In the interest of consistency and transparency, the Chief Electoral Officer would maintain an online registry, available to the public, of the complete text of final guidelines and interpretation notes, as well as of the written opinions containing advance rulings that have been issued.

This system would be far superior to what is currently in place, because currently political parties and campaigns can only guess at how their actions might be interpreted.

I would also point out that under the fair elections act, a mechanism would be put in place whereby the Chief Electoral Officer and the representatives of registered political parties would have a forum to help guide such interpretations. The forum is not new, but it would be put to better use.

The Advisory Committee of Political Parties was established to share information, to foster good working relations, to consult on legislative changes, and to resolve administrative issues.

Looking back at the reports of the Chief Electoral Officer following each general election, one finds a quick summary of the advisory committee's work. In the report on the 40th election in 2008, we learn that advisory committee members were generally satisfied with Elections Canada's services and the overall administration of the election, but there was discussion on candidate debates, the candidate nomination process, and voter identification. In the report on the 2011 general election, the advisory committee discussed the effectiveness of Elections Canada's information services. We think the practical knowledge that the advisory committee members have can assist in crafting future guidelines, interpretations, and advance rulings.

Under the fair elections act, the Chief Electoral Officer would turn to the advisory committee for guidance and advice on interpretation notes. The committee would have 15 days to weigh in and determine whether it thinks the guideline is fair. The Chief Electoral Officer and the parties can help ensure that the rules are clear and fair.

While the advice of the advisory committee is not binding on the Chief Electoral Officer, it should help to ensure that future rules are informed by the realities that political parties face.

The changes that I have referred to thus far in my speech deal with matters that most Canadians may not know about, but they are very important. They make the rules clearer and help prevent the unintentional breaking of the rules. They are, I would suggest, of vital interest to all members of the House, and I certainly trust that we will have them in place in time for the next election.

The second element that I would like to discuss today is the provision in the bill that would require voters to prove their identities when voting. This is clearly something that the vast majority of Canadians wholeheartedly support. They understand it is a very reasonable requirement that people should be able to prove their identities when voting. In fact, in a recent poll, 87% of Canadians indicated that was something they believed was a very reasonable thing that they supported. I can confirm that from anecdotal evidence and through conversations I have had with constituents and other Canadians. It is something that many people feel quite strongly is an important part of ensuring a fair democracy.

I would note that during the committee process there was a lot of discussion regarding those particular provisions. There were some amendments made in relation to voter identification aspects. As it currently sits, there are 39 different forms of ID that can be used to prove one's identity when voting, and there are 13 pieces of ID, besides one's driver's licence, that can be used to prove people's addresses.

Obviously those are very important changes. In committee, there were some amendments made in order to provide for any potential concerns, but we are still very much requiring that people be able to prove their identities when voting. There is provision for a written co-signed oath, signed by both the elector and another elector who is able to produce the proper identification, in order to swear to an elector's residence for those who may not have their residential addresses on their identification. That would ensure compliance with the rules and ensure that people can verify who they are in order to vote.

The committee heard many times from the opposition about hypothetical voters who would not be able to vote with these changes. I would note that during the committee process, every time I heard about one of these hypothetical voters, I would think about it. I do not have time in my remarks, but hopefully I will get a chance in the questions to go through what those hypothetical voters could do to prove their residences and identities. In all cases, I was able to come up with a solution that would allow someone to vote in that hypothetical situation.

One thing I did note is that at no time during the committee hearings, and there were very extensive hearings, did I hear any one person say he or she would not be able to vote should these changes be put in place, nor did I ever hear anyone say that he or she knew of anyone who would not be able to vote.

It is quite clear to me that there is full support for those changes. What it will do is ensure the sanctity of the election process and ensure that all Canadians are eligible to vote who are in fact eligible to vote.

I look forward to questions.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

I will ask him one very specific question. I feel like asking him two questions, but when you ask more than one, you often get no answer at all because it is too complicated. I will therefore ask him just one, very specific question.

The hon. member is a member of the committee. He therefore studied the bill. Let us come back to one amendment in particular, which still gets to me. My colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent also mentioned it a few times.

This amendment was on the voter information card, which can no longer be used as ID at the polling station. As we were unable to keep the amendment in question, we tried to propose an amendment that would add information to the voter card making it very clear that it can no longer be used as identification at the polling station. Otherwise, this might cause problems for people who are unaware of this change and for years have been voting with this card that they suddenly can no longer use from one election to the next.

Why did the Conservatives reject this very sensible amendment? Since my question is very specific, I hope to get a specific answer.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to provide a specific answer to his question. However, I will point out first of all that he should get his facts straight when asking a question. From listening to the preface to his question, the member was misinformed in terms of what the facts actually are.

The voter information card is not an identification card. It is an information card. It has never been a piece of identification. In the last election, on a test basis, it was something that was allowed.

It has never been one of the 39 forms of identification that are acceptable. In fact, what I can confirm to the member is that there are 39 forms that continue to exist to prove one's identity.

I can also confirm to the member that during the committee hearings and committee discussion, we did, in fact, make some amendments to the provisions about voter identification to ensure that where people are able to prove their identity, which is very important, because people must be able to prove who they are to vote, they are able to co-sign an oath with another elector who can confirm their residence. This would be in instances where the residential address does not appear on their identification. People would be able to use that process prove their residence.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Minister of State (Western Economic Diversification)]

Mr. Speaker, I note that my colleague who just spoke spent many hours on the committee. I was wondering if the member could speak to a question that has come up in the House many times about there being no sort of consultation on this bill.

Knowing that the member spent dozens of hours on this committee, could he speak to the committee study? Who was consulted, who came in front of the committee, and how was the amendment process undertaken?

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question. I can confirm that the committee did in fact have dozens and dozens of hours of testimony.

We had a very significant and detailed debate about the legislation over quite a period of time. We were able to look at a number of different suggestions that were given to us. We heard from the Chief Electoral Officer, past chief electoral officers, and many other electoral officers across the country. We heard from many academics and Canadians of all types who were there to express their thoughts on our election law, a very important subject.

We were very appreciative of all the testimony we heard. We were able to make a number of amendments that I think make a great bill even better.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak close to the end, if not the merciful end, of this debate. This has been a long and contentious bill, and we are about to enter into a marathon voting session as various motions and amendments are put forward at the end of this debate.

I have one piece of advice for the government, which of course, it is not going to accept, but that is another thing altogether. It is that the Conservatives could have saved themselves a lot of grief had they introduced this bill or a form of this bill at first reading and then sent it off to the committee, because of the unique nature of this bill. This is not a government bill. This is not a party bill. This is not an opposition bill. This is a bill for the people of Canada, and it should have been presented as a first-reading bill to the people of Canada and sent off to committee.

Then we would not have had this gong show that has been going on for the last six weeks, where we had the Minister of State for Democratic Reform going through this process of pretty well ridiculing anyone who had anything to say about our democracy in this country, starting with the Chief Electoral Officer, who was accused of wearing the team sweater; the former chief electoral officer; and all the commissioners, both current and former commissioners. Throw in the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, for goodness' sake, just as an attack diversion, then go back to Justice Gomery, then go on to various other officers of Parliament.

It seems to be the modus operandi of the Conservative government to attack everyone and everything, no matter how significant the institution, no matter how important their dedication and their service to this country, if they are not marching to the drummer put forward by the current government.

As I say, we probably could have saved ourselves, and the government probably could have saved itself, a lot of hits to its credibility had the Conservatives introduced this bill at first reading and put it before the committee. Then it could have been legitimately argued that they were consulting the people of Canada and the people who represent the interests of Canadians and that their voting system, not the party's voting system, not the government's voting system, not the opposition party's voting system, but the Canadians' voting system, is as fair as it can possibly be.

The government has taken a huge hit on its credibility, because there is an enormous suspicion that this bill is loaded in favour of the government party. That suspicion, once it set in, took on the force of almost being set in stone. It did not really matter how many amendments, the character of the amendments, or the quality of the amendments that were eventually passed by the government members on the committee. It did not matter. There was a fierce sense that this bill was flawed from the beginning, that it was stacked in favour of the Conservative Party, and that Canadians actually did not get a real say.

When they attack the various people who act as our institutional bulwark against bias in our electoral system, they set up a result that is entirely predictable. The result is that at the end of our time of voting here tonight, there will be a deep-set belief among the people of Canada that the Conservative Party has stacked the system in its own favour. That is ultimately very regrettable.

They could simply have made it so that the Chief Electoral Officer reports here, not through the director of prosecutions. It would be a very simple thing to do. However, the perception of unfairness and the perception of bias is loaded into the system when they create that procedural inequity. It is hard to see how a Chief Electoral Officer is going to be representing what he or she perceives to be the best interests of the Canadian public when he or she has to go to the justice minister, who is a member of a particular party, in order to initiate a particular prosecution. I do not know what the analogy is, but it does not seem to be fair, and it simply does not pass the sniff test.

With respect to the opportunity to report the commission's activities, instead of reporting the commission's activities to the people of Canada through the Parliament of Canada, it will now report through the Government of Canada. The issue is not so much that it is this government or any other government; it is that the people of Canada are entitled to that level of objectivity and neutrality.

I know that there has been a lot of discussion about vouching, and in some respects, it is going to take on a life of its own. There have been endless numbers of question periods devoted to the issue of vouching. What is it that is really at the core? In the greater scheme of things, it is not a lot of voters, but at the core of that issue is the sense that each and every Canadian citizen is entitled to vote. Unfortunately, not all citizens are created equal as far as their ability to identify themselves at the relevant period of time. Some, frankly, do not have documentation that would be acceptable in many circumstances. It speaks to the core issue that each and every Canadian citizen is equal before the law, and because he or she is equal before the law, the person is absolutely entitled to vote and the system needs to bend over backwards to assure itself that this person is in fact a Canadian citizen.

We have a whole variety of issues, almost all of which could have been dealt with by the introduction of the bill at first reading. It could have been dealt with in a fashion that was not only fair but that was perceived to be fair. That is the issue here. The bill may actually have some merit, but at this point of the debate, prior to the vote, there is a deep-seated view that the merits are stacked in favour of the government party. Once that perception sets in, it is almost game over as far as the faith Canadians have in the fairness and equity of their electoral democracy.

As we are about to launch into our voting period, I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for your time and attention.

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-23, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other acts and to make consequential amendments to certain acts, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

It being 6:16 p.m., pursuant to an order made on Thursday, May 8, 2014, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the report stage of the bill now before the House.

The question is on Motion No. 1. A negative vote on Motion No. 1 requires the question to be put on Motions Nos. 4, 7, 12, 13, 36, 74 and 138.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The recorded division on the motion stands deferred. The recorded division will also apply to Motions Nos. 2, 3, 6, 10, 11, 14 to 21, 24, 27, 30 to 35, 37, 39 to 44, 50 to 54, 56, 57, 61, 62, 64 to 73, 75 to 85, 88, 89, 91, 96 to 99, 101 to 137, and 139 to 145.

The next question is on the Motion No. 5. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

In my opinion the nays have it.

I declare the Motion No. 5 defeated. Motions Nos. 22, 23, 25, 26, 29, and 45 are also defeated.

The next question is on Motion No. 9. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The recorded division on the motion stands deferred.

The question is on Motion No. 28. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The recorded division on the motion stands deferred and the recorded division will also apply to Motion 38.

The question is on Motion No. 46. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The recorded division stands deferred.

The question is on Motion No. 47. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The recorded division on the motion stands deferred.

The question is on Motion No. 48. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The recorded division on the motion stands deferred.

The question is on Motion No. 49. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

The recorded division on the motion stands deferred.

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded divisions at the report stage of the bill.

Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The question is on Motion No. 1. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 2, 3, 6, 10, 11, 14 to 21, 24, 27, 30 to 35, 37, 39 to 44, 50 to 54, 56, 57, 61, 62, 64 to 73, 75 to 85, 88, 89, 91, 96 to 99, 101 to 137, and 139 to 145.

A negative vote on Motion No. 1 requires the question to be put on Motions Nos. 4, 7, 12, 13, 36, 74 and 138.

(The House divided on Motion No. 1, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #122

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I declare the motion defeated.

I declare Motions Nos. 2, 3, 6, 10, 11, 14 to 21, 24, 27, 30 to 35, 37, 39 to 44, 50 to 54, 56, 57, 61, 62, 64 to 73, 75 to 85, 88, 89, 91, 96 to 99, 101 to 137 and 139 to 145 defeated as well.

The next question is on Motion No. 4.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

(The House divided on the motion, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #123

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I declare Motion No. 4 defeated.

The next question is on Motion No. 7. A vote on this motion also applies to Motion No. 8.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

(The House divided on Motion No. 7, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #124

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

I declare Motion No. 7 defeated. I therefore declare Motion No. 8 defeated.

The next question is on Motion No. 12. All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

(The House divided on Motion No. 12, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #125

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

I declare Motion No. 12 defeated.

The next question is on Motion No. 13. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

(The House divided on Motion No. 13, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #126

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

I declare Motion No. 13 defeated.

The question is on Motion No. 36. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

(The House divided on Motion No. 36, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #127

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

I declare Motion No. 36 defeated.

The next question is on Motion No. 74. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

(The House divided on Motion No. 74, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #128

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

I declare Motion No. 74 defeated.

The question is on Motion No. 138. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

(The House divided on the motion, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #129

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

I declare Motion No. 138 defeated.

The question is on Motion No. 9.

(The House divided on the motion, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #130

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

I declare Motion No. 9 defeated.

The next question is on Motion No. 28. A vote on this motion also applies to Motion No. 38.

[Before the Clerk announced the results of the vote:]

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

Mr. Speaker, in a desperate effort to have any chance to speak to my amendment, I have accidentally voted against my own amendment to ensure we do not have Sunday voting in advance polls. The hon. member for Thunder Bay—Superior North and I wish to record our votes as in support of this amendment.

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

That is acceptable.

(The House divided on Motion No. 28, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #131

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

I declare Motion No. 28 defeated.

I therefore declare Motion No. 38 defeated.

The next question is on Motion No. 46.

(The House divided on Motion No. 46, which was negatived to on the following division:)

Vote #132

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

I declare Motion No. 46 defeated.

The next question is on Motion No. 47.

(The House divided on Motion No. 47, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #133

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

I declare Motion No. 47 defeated.

Now the question is on Motion No. 48.

(The House divided on the Motion, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #134

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

I declare Motion No. 48 defeated.

The next question is on Motion No. 49.

(The House divided on Motion No. 49, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #135

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

I declare Motion No. 49 defeated.

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

moved that the bill, as amended, be concurred in at report stage with further amendments.

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

[And five or more members having risen:]

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #136

[The Deputy Speaker, Joe Comartin]

I declare the motion carried.