Bill C-76 (Historical)

Elections Modernization Act

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

This enactment amends the Canada Elections Act to establish spending limits for third parties and political parties during a defined period before the election period of a general election held on a day fixed under that Act. It also establishes measures to increase transparency regarding the participation of third parties in the electoral process. Among other things that it does in this regard, the enactment
(a) adds reporting requirements for third parties engaging in partisan activities, partisan advertising, and election surveys to the reporting requirements for third parties engaging in election advertising;
(b) creates an obligation for third parties to open a separate bank account for expenses related to the matters referred to in paragraph (a); and
(c) creates an obligation for political parties and third parties to identify themselves in partisan advertising during the defined period before the election period.
The enactment also amends the Act to implement measures to reduce barriers to participation and increase accessibility. Among other things that it does in this regard, the enactment
(a) establishes a Register of Future Electors in which Canadian citizens 14 to 17 years of age may consent to be included;
(b) broadens the application of accommodation measures to all persons with a disability, irrespective of its nature;
(c) creates a financial incentive for registered parties and candidates to take steps to accommodate persons with a disability during an election period;
(d) amends some of the rules regarding the treatment of candidates’ expenses, including the rules related to childcare expenses, expenses related to the care of a person with a disability and litigation expenses;
(e) amends the rules regarding the treatment of nomination contestants’ and leadership contestants’ litigation expenses and personal expenses;
(f) allows Canadian Forces electors access to several methods of voting, while also adopting measures to ensure the integrity of the vote;
(g) removes limitations on public education and information activities conducted by the Chief Electoral Officer;
(h) removes two limitations on voting by non-resident electors: the requirement that they have been residing outside Canada for less than five consecutive years and the requirement that they intend to return to Canada to resume residence in the future; and
(i) extends voting hours on advance polling days.
The enactment also amends the Act to modernize voting services, facilitate enforcement and improve various aspects of the administration of elections and of political financing. Among other things that it does in this regard, the enactment
(a) removes the assignment of specific responsibilities set out in the Act to specific election officers by creating a generic category of election officer to whom all those responsibilities may be assigned;
(b) limits election periods to a maximum of 50 days;
(c) removes administrative barriers in order to facilitate the hiring of election officers;
(d) authorizes the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to provide the Chief Electoral Officer with information about permanent residents and foreign nationals for the purpose of updating the Register of Electors;
(e) removes the prohibition on the Chief Electoral Officer authorizing the notice of confirmation of registration (commonly known as a “voter information card”) as identification;
(f) replaces, in the context of voter identification, the option of attestation for residence with an option of vouching for identity and residence;
(g) removes the requirement for electors’ signatures during advance polls, changes procedures for the closing of advance polls and allows for counting ballots from advance polls one hour before the regular polls close;
(h) replaces the right or obligation to take an oath with a right or obligation to make a solemn declaration, and streamlines the various declarations that electors may have the right or obligation to make under specific circumstances;
(i) relocates the Commissioner of Canada Elections to within the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, and provides that the Commissioner is to be appointed by the Chief Electoral Officer, after consultation with the Director of Public Prosecutions, for a non-renewable term of 10 years;
(j) provides the Commissioner of Canada Elections with the authority to impose administrative monetary penalties for contraventions of provisions of Parts 16, 17 and 18 of the Act and certain other provisions of the Act;
(k) provides the Commissioner of Canada Elections with the authority to lay charges;
(l) provides the Commissioner of Canada Elections with the power to apply for a court order requiring testimony or a written return;
(m) clarifies offences relating to
(i) the publishing of false statements,
(ii) participation by non-Canadians in elections, including inducing electors to vote or refrain from voting, and
(iii) impersonation; and
(n) implements a number of measures to harmonize and streamline political financing monitoring and reporting.
The enactment also amends the Act to provide for certain requirements with regard to the protection of personal information for registered parties, eligible parties and political parties that are applying to become registered parties, including the obligation for the party to adopt a policy for the protection of personal information and to publish it on its Internet site.
The enactment also amends the Parliament of Canada Act to prevent the calling of a by-election when a vacancy in the House of Commons occurs within nine months before the day fixed for a general election under the Canada Elections Act.
It also amends the Public Service Employment Act to clarify that the maximum period of employment of casual workers in the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer — 165 working days in one calendar year — applies to those who are appointed by the Commissioner of Canada Elections.
Finally, the enactment contains transitional provisions, makes consequential amendments to other Acts and repeals the Special Voting Rules.

Elections Modernization Act

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot of discussion on the question of identification. I am on the Elections Canada website, which identifies acceptable forms of ID that can be used to provide proof of address, and it is a very long list. I will not read it in its entirety for the member, but it includes things like a letter of confirmation of residency; a letter of stay; an admission form or a statement of benefits from a student residence, senior residence, long-term care, shelter, or soup kitchen. It includes things like a library card, hospital card, blood donor card, and credit card.

It is hard to imagine that there is anyone who could not get one of these things. There may be some people who do not have them right now, but a homeless person can ask a soup kitchen or shelter for a letter confirming his or her identity. There are so many options.

Would the member agree that perhaps there are people who think they do not have the required ID, but maybe it is because someone has not given them the right information about how many ways they can currently demonstrate their identity?

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I agree that there there are lot of ways for electors to prove their identity. The fact is that a lot of Canadians do not know this. They do not go to the website. They get their electors' card in the mail and they go to the place written on the card to vote. If they are turned away there because they do not have proper identification, then a lot of them go home discouraged and do not bother coming back. I think that is one of the main reasons people want to use that card. It is because they do not know any better. They think this card gives them the right to vote, and this bill would return that right to them.

As so many people have said here today, give us an example of someone who has shown up with that card and voted in a fraudulent way, has voted twice, or was not eligible to vote. When voters arrive, there is a list to which their card is compared. We all know this. We all know how scrutineering works, and there are safeguards in place to deal with that.

What we have to do is make it easy and fair as possible for all Canadians to vote so that we can have a democracy we can be proud of.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this is important legislation as the Liberals try to fundamentally change aspects of our democracy through an omnibus bill that raises grave questions about the integrity of upcoming elections. There has been a great deal of shiftiness in the government's rationale, so I do want to set the stage by responding to some of the very partisan criticisms we have seen of the alleged motivations of past Conservative legislation.

Let us be very clear that our Conservative Party, the official opposition, wants to see more Canadians voting. That is for two reasons, a reason of principal and another a practical reason. The reason of principal is that we believe that our democracy is strengthened when more people vote and participate, which is important for the good of our society and the effectiveness of the discourse we have here.

However, there is also a practical reason. It was something I was told in one of the first political training seminars I had when I came here as a Conservative staffer in Ottawa. Statistically if we look at Canadian history, Conservative Parties generally do better when there is a higher turnout. I am sure my friends across the way will gasp at this, but they can look at the data, which is very clear, that over the last 60 years, 40 years, and 25 years, Conservative Parties are more likely to win elections in which more people participate. In the last 60 years, the data shows that in elections won by Conservatives, there was an average turnout of 71% for Conservatives and 70% for the Liberals. In the last 40 years, in elections that Conservatives won, the average turnout was 68.5%, but only 66% when Liberals won. If we look at the last 25 years, the same two-point difference exists, 67% versus 65%.

Unfortunately, there is also a general downward trend in voter turnout, and there tends to be a little spike every time there is a change of government. We can expect an increase in turnout in the 2019 election as well. There was one exception to that in a recent election, and that was the 1993 election when the Liberals last took power. Again, people voted for them but there was not a lot of enthusiasm, because there was actually a drop in turnout in the 1993 election even though there was a change in government.

Generally speaking, these were the trends. We see a slight spike when there is a change in government and a general downward trend, but overall, Conservatives are more likely to win elections when there is a higher turnout.

We have this hyperpartisan narrative coming from the other side. The Liberals tell us that Conservatives do not want people to vote. Actually Conservatives do want more people to vote, both for reasons of principle that reflect how we see the world and our commitment to democracy, but also for reasons that reflect a clear analysis of strategic realities.

When we look at election rules, we see that people are more likely to vote when there is clear information out there about where, when, and how to vote. The emphasis we put on the changes we made to the Elections Act were that Elections Canada would focus on communicating details about how to vote, about where, when, how to vote and what the requirements were.

It is interesting that when we had this discussion of identification, the NDP member who just spoke said that the problem is that people do not necessarily know they have so many options with the ID required. That is why we made sure there would be many options for the ID that people could use, but also on making sure we communicated the rules of voting. We saw a quite significant spike in turnout in the last election.

The Liberals will say this was not because of but in spite of the changes we made. That is a bit rich given that the rules were specifically designed to make sure that people had the information and ability to vote, and that the rules seemed to work. It does not seem to show much of a commitment to evidence-based policy on the part of the government that it makes claims that are clearly and verifiably at odds with overall voting trends.

On the other hand, here is data if one if trying to do this evidence-based policy analysis. In 2008, there was a campaign filing by a new Liberal MP, the member for Papineau, who is now the Prime Minister, listing among other things products and services provided by the party, the option for varying quantities of NDP or Conservative targeted voter suppression cards.

The Prime Minister used various quantities of NDP or Conservative-targeted voter suppression cards. Maybe the Prime Minister wants to explain what that means. I certainly have never been involved in a campaign where we distributed cards aimed at reducing the number of people who vote. That is something the Liberals have to contend with as they approach this issue.

We have good evidence based on campaign filings by the Prime Minister that the Liberals want fewer people to vote, whereas Conservatives want more people to vote. We might understand that, since the Liberals are more likely to win elections in which fewer people vote and Conservatives are more likely to win elections in which more people vote. In that light, we understand why the Prime Minister has invested in voter suppression cards in the past. This is the context in which the Liberal government is now planning to move forward unilaterally with changes to the electoral process.

There are a number of different elements in this legislation that my colleagues have talked about. One is to change the rules for identification. Right now, we have incredibly generous identification rules, and Canadians need to know this because people will be misled if they take at face value what the government is saying.

The current rules are that people either present one piece of photo ID with an address, like a driver's licence, which many people have but certainly not everybody, or they present two pieces of ID. There is a long list of options. One of them has to include an address. They include things like a credit card or a birth certificate, a pension label, a utility bill, a letter of confirmation of stay or residence from a student, or someone in a seniors residence, a long-term care facility, a shelter or a soup kitchen. They include a library card, an employee card, a student ID card, a parolee card, a Métis card, a veterans affairs health card, or old age security card. It is a very long list. I could spend my 10 minutes just listing the possible forms of ID that could be used. Everybody either has enough ID to vote or they can easily get enough ID to vote.

The government members have related how some Canadians have said they were unable to vote in the last election because of lack of ID. To the extent that is the case, I think it is because people are not being given sufficient information or they are being given false information, perhaps by members of the Liberal Party, about what ID is required. Perhaps they are being told by Liberal members of Parliament that the ID requirements are actually presently more stringent than they are.

Anybody should be able to vote as a result of accessing the points about required ID listed here. If some have only one of those points of ID, there is a current process by which someone can attest to a person's identity if he or she does not have that proof of residency. It is a constrained process, but it is a process that is still currently allowed.

With their new bill, the Liberals now say that people can bring a voter information card. There is ample evidence that there have been many errors with those, such as polling cards being sent to the wrong addresses, or cards being sent to people who are not citizens. There have been many such problems. I am not going to have time to go through all the issues, although there are many different problems.

Let us talk about the lack of meaningful protections from foreign interference in elections, which, perversely, is something that the government has talked about.

The foreign affairs minister for example has raised the spectre of possible Russia interference in an election. We know in fact that the Russian government has already tried to push out media stories to discredit the foreign affairs minister on the basis of allegations about her family, so the government should be aware of this issue. Yet it has put in place a system that allows foreign entities to transfer money to Canadian organizations for use during elections, and as long as that financial transfer happens outside of a writ period, there is absolutely no rules to constrain it. The Russian government or American anti-industry groups or a Chinese organization, any foreign entity that wants to influence a Canadian election, can transfer money to Canada to influence the outcome of elections as long as that financial transfer happens outside of a writ period.

There are no limits on government advertising during the immediate pre-writ period, and yet there are constraints on what opposition parties can spend. If the Liberals want to limit advertising during that period, the same rules should apply to the opposition as apply to the government.

We have seen that the Liberals are not interested in more people voting. In fact, they have an interest in having fewer people vote and are changing the rules in a way that fundamentally threatens the integrity of our elections.

This is a terrible bill and I strongly oppose it.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my friend, the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, for his insightful intervention in this debate. He has laid out very clearly that the Liberals are opening up the electoral process to potential voter fraud. They are making it easier for foreign entities to influence our election process. We do not need Russian oligarchs, or the Kremlin, or the Communist Party of China buying votes and trying to undermine our democracy.

Our democracy is for Canadians first and foremost. We want to make sure that everyone has the right of franchise and is able to vote, but they have to be able to do it by proving who they are and where they live so we are not open to voter fraud. I also believe that we cannot allow international entities, whether governments or anti-development organizations, or those who oppose Canadian democracy to undermine our system, which is above and beyond the best in the world as far as democracies go.

Could my colleague elaborate further on how we could amend the bill the Liberals have brought forward? More importantly, could he lay out why he thinks the Liberals are bringing forward this bill without proper debate, ramming it through the House and not allowing us the opportunity to have a fulsome debate so we can nail down and drive down the shortfalls within the legislation?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague said it very well and was able to ask a question because I guess no members of the government were ready to respond to my argument by asking questions themselves. He spoke very well about the issue of foreign interference in our election and asked why the Liberals, despite having talked about this issue, are not moving forward to act on it. I think it is because they realize that their ideological mentality, for instance their opposition to the development of the energy sector, is supported by many of these foreign intervenors, whereas our party has been very forthright on issues of human rights, be they in Russia, in Russian occupied parts of Ukraine, or in China. We have been very vocal on these issues. The government has been comparatively much less vocal on human rights. The Liberals sees a dynamic in which foreign intervention in Canadian elections might be more beneficial to them and more harmful to us.

The Conservatives are prepared to make our case to Canadians because we know that our policies when it comes to standing up for human rights and standing up for energy development are reflective of what Canadians want to see, and reflective of the Canadian national interest.

Regardless of the ways in which the Liberals try to shift the rules to their advantage, we will push back against foreign interference. We will make our case to the Canadian people, and we are confident they will respond.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, when Stephen Harper was the prime minister, they had an opportunity to deal with foreign interference, or the threat that Conservative members continue to bring up. They chose to do nothing about it. Rather, what they did was to get rid of the voter identity card. They did not want Canadians to be able to use a card that Elections Canada was sending out. That is what they chose to do.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Order. I believe the hon. member for Winnipeg North has the floor. I am hearing shouting going back and forth, and I am having a hard time hearing what he has to say. I am very interested in hearing his discourse.

The hon. member for Winnipeg North.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, think about this. In 2011, we actually have the voter ID card. It was working quite well. Elections Canada did not have a problem with it. Stephen Harper came by and did have a problem with it. He took it away. In the last election, over 150,000 Canadians did not—

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Wrong.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

No, it's right. Check with procedure and House affairs committee. Mr. Speaker, they do not even know the facts and they are voting against it.

The point is that 150,000 Canadians did not have the type of ID that was necessary. This is something that ensure that more people participate in democracy. Why does the Conservative Party not stay in touch with what Canadians want? This legislation would strengthen Canada's democracy. It is legislation they should be voting for. Could the member clearly indicate why, specifically, they are voting against this legislation?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, I am sure, has an answer, and I would like to hear it. I really had to struggle to hear the hon. member for Winnipeg North. I do not expect that anyone will run interference.

The hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, in 45 seconds or less, please.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my friend across the way is clearly full of shiftiness in terms of the question he is posing. I spoke specifically about the issue of identification and the long list of forms of ID available, things like a letter from a soup kitchen or a student ID card. The member should not be giving Canadians misinformation about the present realities of the law. All Canadians either have the ID they need or can get it very easily.

The voter information card is an information card. We know that we have significant evidence of these being sent out in error, being sent to people who are not citizens, and being sent after there is a change of address. We know that there are problems with the voter information cards, so we set up a system in which anyone can prove his or her identity, but people have to prove their identity. They have to actually get that letter, bring that prescription bottle, or bring that Métis card or citizenship card, whatever it is. There are many different ways people can prove their identity, but they should have to prove who they are in order to vote.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to speak to Bill C-76, a bill that would, among other things, make changes to the way political parties, election candidates, and third parties could spend money both before and during elections.

Spending limits on candidates and parties for elections is not new. These have been around for decades. Contribution limits are a little more recent. Many Canadians remember the days when political fundraising was wide open. There was a time when political parties could hold a dinner in Toronto and banks, law firms, and lobbyists could buy tables at $10,000 a pop, paying for them with company money, and perhaps even deducting the cost as a business expense, which it was, rather than as a political contribution.

Eventually, successive governments changed the rules to diffuse political financial support away from Bay Street and toward individual Canadians, more typically motivated by personal conviction, as it should be, rather than by self-interest.

It was the Chrétien government that brought in the first contribution limits. With the Federal Accountability Act of 2006, Prime Minister Stephen Harper reduced the limit to $1,500 per person and banned contributions from corporations, unions, and charities. Later, he also got rid of the per-vote subsidy, recognizing that paying political parties for each vote rigs the system in favour of perpetuating the winner.

Another thing Prime Minister Harper did was tell his cabinet that he would not tolerate fundraising by his ministers from stakeholder groups that had dealings with their own departments. In other words, he would not tolerate cash for access fundraising.

The reason I bring up this brief history of political party fundraising is that the most important aspect of Bill C-76 is the way it would deal with election and pre-election spending.

The environment this bill is tabled in cannot be separated from the spending and fundraising environment the present governing party finds itself in. Make no mistake, the Liberals have struggled to raise money in the post-corporate-donation and post-per-vote-subsidy era, while at the same time, they have greatly benefited from spending by third parties. Some third parties are virtually Liberal proxies, and others are foreign entities with an agenda hostile to Canada's best interests.

When elected, the first thing these Liberals did was start holding these secret cash for access fundraisers, and we are not talking about a one-off. We are talking about a fundraising system wherein a significant part of Liberal fundraising relied on these kinds of events.

When the media and opposition parties criticized this practice over a period of months, the government House leader said, at least some 200 times in this House, that Canada's fundraising laws are among the strictest anywhere in the world. I agree with her. We have already mentioned this. I agree with her that the fundraising rules are strict. The problem is that the Liberals have tried to get around the rules, to get around the spirit, and in some cases the actual letter, of the existing elections law and fundraising practices.

Here are today debating Bill C-76, knowing that Canada, as she has said, already has very strict fundraising rules that make it very difficult to raise money any way other than through small donations from individual Canadians motivated by support for a party's ideas or its candidates.

What can a party in government do when it cannot raise enough money on the strength of its ideas and when it is carrying around the weight of its own dubious track record? When it is struggling to raise money, it can do two things: limit expenditures by political parties; or make it easier for third-party proxies, who are not subject to the same rules as a political party, and have these third parties do its job for it.

This bill would enable both of these things to happen. On the expenditures side, this bill would create a pre-writ expense restriction, which would help the Liberals, who are struggling to raise money. At the same time, this bill would allow registered third parties a similar cap during the pre-writ period, but then it would nearly double the amount these third parties could spend during the writ period itself, while doing nothing, absolutely zero, to address the broader issue of how foreign funding of registered third parties distorts our democracy.

This is the most important part of the bill. At an absolute minimum, the changes to the spending rules contained in Bill C-76 are a cynical attempt to compensate for the Liberals' inability to raise money on their own. At worst, this bill represents a wilful refusal to deal with attempts by foreigners to influence Canadian elections. The bill contains token lip service to the problem by creating a pre-writ election period in the summer before a scheduled fall election and by banning foreign contributions by third parties during that time. This bill would create an expense limit during that time, which, by the way, for third parties, would be nearly the same limit a political party would have. The government will, no doubt, claim that it has now addressed the problem by doing so, but nothing could be further from the truth. This bill would nearly double the amount third parties could spend during the writ itself, and again, would do absolutely nothing to address the much more serious problem of the way foreign organizations are undermining Canadian democracy.

How serious is the issue of foreign-funded third parties in our elections? How do we know that foreign interests are exerting influence in Canada's elections? The answer is simple. We know this because registered third parties that receive millions of dollars in foreign money openly bragged about their success in influencing the outcome of the last election. In the case of the Tides Foundation, which is the foreign paymaster of at least eight domestic third parties that campaigned in the last election, it openly states that its agenda is to shut down Canada's resource industry. Likewise, it claims credit for the substantial success that anti-energy agenda is currently enjoying under the current government.

Take the example of Leadnow. That is an organization funded by the anti-Canadian Tides Foundation. It boasts about the role it played in defeating the previous government. Its own published report following the 2015 election claimed, “We selected target ridings with field teams run by paid Leadnow organizers”. This post-election “Defeating Harper” report went on to detail how it systematically targeted ridings based on detailed, extensive, and expensive professional polling research and focused its attention on those critical ridings. It further took credit for the defeat of Conservative candidates in 26 out of 29 targeted seats and for having a 96% success rate for its endorsed candidates.

There is no mystery. It received foreign money and is bragging about how effective it was in using it to pay organizers to help defeat the previous government. This is not a conspiracy theory. It is not speculation. Foreign-funded third parties are out there bragging about how effective they are at influencing election outcomes.

If the Liberal government agrees that such interference is a problem, or if it is in any way uncomfortable with the prospect of foreign money compromising the integrity of Canadian elections, it should have used the opportunity before it to actually engage in meaningful reform of how third parties engage with the public during and between elections. The government could have, for example, made registered third parties subject to audit between elections. It could have banned foreign contributions altogether by making it an offence for a third party that participates in an election campaign to receive money between elections instead of simply during the summer pre-writ period.

The government could prevent third parties from colluding to defeat the intent of the law. It could reduce, instead of increase, the limit on third parties during the writ period.

However, the Liberals have chosen not to do any of these things, because these Liberals have proven over and over again how much they prefer a rigged game when it comes to elections. They are the same Liberals who wasted enormous energy on their absurd electoral reform program, which they actually used to suck in various activist groups like Leadnow, Fair Vote Canada, some union groups, and The Council of Canadians. They used that issue to gain support from these third parties and then did absolutely nothing to follow through on their promise. These are the same Liberals who relied on secret cash for access fundraising until they were caught, the same Liberals who tried to eliminate opposition tools through standing order changes, and the same Liberals who tried to give themselves a $7-billion slush fund through their so-called estimates reform. They are the same Liberals who are now trying to compensate for their failure to raise money through this bill.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, I think the debate we just heard really underscores why this legislation is so important. This discussion has turned into “My wallet is bigger than your wallet, so if you want something I'm going to fight against you to get that”, when really that is what we should be fighting against: getting the money out of politics.

To that end, I personally, speaking as an individual, tend to agree with some of what I have heard from the NDP today about the per-vote subsidy and taking money out of politics, because as long as we keep the money in politics like this we are going to continue to hear this rhetoric about “My wallet is so much bigger than your wallet, and therefore I'm going to be able to do this to you during the election.” It does not serve Canadians to do that.