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 principle and a practical reason. The reason of principle 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.
