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.

Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

There are 179 motions in amendment standing on the Notice Paper for the report stage of Bill C-76. Motions Nos. 1 to 179 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 179 to the House.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-76, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other Acts and to make certain consequential amendments, as reported (with amendments) from the committee.

Elections Modernization Act—Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I am now prepared to rule on a point of order raised on October 23, 2018, by the hon. member for Perth—Wellington regarding Bill C-76, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other acts and to make certain consequential amendments.

The hon. member objects to an amendment adopted by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, sometimes called PROC in this place, on the basis that it amends a section of the parent act not amended by the bill. He argues that the committee went beyond the mandate the House had given it and urges the Chair to strike the amendment from the bill. He notes that Speakers have exercised this power in the past to deal with inadmissible amendments adopted by a committee.

I am grateful to the hon. member for having raised this matter, as it affords me the opportunity to clear up a misconception about what is commonly referred to as the “Parent Act rule”.

As the hon. member no doubt noted, the passage he cited concerning this rule, found at page 771 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, is contained in a section about relevance.

The Parent Act rule, the idea that an amendment should not amend an act or a section not already amended by a bill, rests on a presumption that such an amendment would not be relevant to the bill. This can be true. Often, such amendments attempt to deal with matters not referenced in the bill, and this is improper.

However, there are also occasions when an amendment is relevant to the subject matter of a bill and in keeping with its scope but can only be accomplished by modifying a section of the parent act not originally touched by the bill or even an entirely different act not originally touched by the bill. This is especially so when the amendments are consequential to other decisions taken by a committee or by the House.

In the present case, an amendment adopted by the committee creates a new section 510.001 of the Canada Elections Act. This section would empower the commissioner of Canada elections to request and obtain certain financial documents from political parties. The hon. member made no suggestion that this amendment was inadmissible. He objects, however, to a related amendment to section 498 of the act that makes it an offence to refuse to comply with the commissioner's request. Section 498, while not originally part of the bill, is the section that spells out offences relating to Part 19 of the act, which is where the new section 510.001 would be found.

I have trouble seeing how this could be considered irrelevant to the bill. Were I to accept the hon. member's argument, we would find ourselves in the strange circumstance of allowing an amendment that creates a new obligation but refusing an amendment that spells out the consequences for failing to comply with that new obligation.

The parent act rule was never intended to be applied blindly as a substitute for proper judgment as to the relevance of an amendment. Clearly, amendments that arise as a direct consequence of other admissible amendments should be considered relevant to the bill, even if they are made to a section of the parent act otherwise unamended.

The hon. member noted that our procedural authorities do not reference any exceptions, leading him to conclude that none are possible. He well knows, however, that practice and precedent are also binding. As is stated at page 274 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice:

Where there are no express rules or orders, the House turns to its own jurisprudence, as interpreted by the Speaker, who examines the Journals and the Debates of the House to determine which rulings of past Speakers and which practices and precedents should be applied.

There are multiple examples of amendments of this nature having been accepted in the past. In 2003, Bill C-250, an act to amend the Criminal Code (hate propaganda), contained a single clause amending section 318 of the Code to change the definition of “identifiable group”. At the beginning of the report stage, on June 6, 2003, the Chair accepted amendments to sections 319 and 320 of the Criminal Code, which also dealt with hate propaganda.

On May 5, 2014, when the Procedure and House Affairs Committee presented its report on Bill C-23, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other acts and to make consequential amendments to certain acts, the report contained an amendment to section 345 of the act, which was not originally amended by the bill, but sought to clarify what did not constitute an election expense under section 376, which the bill did amend.

Just last year, in a report tabled on October 5, 2017, the health committee amended Bill C-45, an act respecting cannabis and to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Criminal Code and other acts, by modifying section 7 of the Non-smokers' Health Act, originally untouched by the bill. This change arose out of an earlier amendment to the definition of “workplace” in the same act.

These are just a few examples where exceptions were made to the parent act rule because the amendments were clearly relevant to the bill. Given that the present amendment is of a similar nature, I have no difficulty concluding that it too should be found in order.

I thank all hon. members for their attention.

Democratic Reform

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, I am proud of the important work we have done on modernizing our election laws.

As part of our study of the Chief Electoral Officer's report following the 2015 election, we released a series of reports containing numerous recommendations. We are pleased to have completed our clause-by-clause study of Bill C-76 and to see that the bill will be sent back to the House of Commons this week.

Could the Prime Minister tell the House about the measures our government is taking to follow through on our commitment to strengthen the openness and fairness of Canada's democratic institutions?

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I would also like to say a few additional words about the time allotted for debate on Bill C-76.

The Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs studied Bill C-76 for a lot of hours, heard from 57 witnesses, including multiple appearances from both the Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada and the Minister of Democratic Institutions.

Prior to the introduction of Bill C-76, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs spent hours studying the recommendations from the previous chief electoral officer's report from 2015. As a result of the committee's hard work and study on those recommendations, 84% of the findings that were studied are in this legislation.

The procedure and House affairs committee worked hard on the legislation and as a result of the great collaboration and amendments brought forward from all parties, I look forward to debating this further strengthened bill at report stage very soon.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Democratic Institutions]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise in the House tonight to respond to the question from the hon. member for Vancouver East.

I am pleased to speak to Bill C-76, the elections modernization act, which the government introduced on April 30. This legislation represents a generational overhaul to the Canada Elections Act, which will improve transparency, fairness, integrity and participation in Canada's electoral system.

The proposed legislation will reduce barriers for Canadian Armed Forces members and persons with disabilities. It will establish a pre-election period with transparency requirements and spending limits for political parties and third parties. It will modernize the administration of elections to make it easier for Canadians to vote and more difficult for elections law-breakers to evade punishments.

The preamble to the question posed by the hon. member for Vancouver East referenced indigenous Canadians, which I would like to address.

Bill C-76 is aimed at reducing barriers to participation in federal elections and increasing accessibility for all Canadians, including indigenous peoples.

The former chief electoral officer's recommendations following the 2015 general federal election indicated that the proof of address requirement was difficult to meet for many and, in some cases, presented a significant barrier to voting for Canadians. Moreover, the same report stated that this was particularly true for youth, homeless electors, seniors living in long-term care facilities, as well as indigenous peoples hoping to cast their ballots.

It was for this reason that the Chief Electoral Officer authorized the use of the voter information card, commonly known as the “VIC”, in several pilot projects. When the VIC is used as proof of address, together with another document proving identity, it will help electors who otherwise may have difficulty meeting the identification requirements.

Consequently, the Chief Electoral Officer recommended that the prohibition on authorizing the VIC as a piece of identification to establish address be removed from the Canada Elections Act.

I am pleased to remind members of the House that Bill C-76 would reverse elements of the Harper Conservatives' so-called Fair Elections Act, which increased barriers to participation in our electoral process. Notably, and for the purposes of debate in the House, Bill C-76 would reinstate both the ability for electors to vouch, as well the use of the voter information card, as proof of address.

The legislation also contains many other measures aimed to ensure that barriers to electoral participation that Canadians currently face are reduced or eliminated and that our federal elections are made more accessible to voters.

I will also remind the House that the current Chief Electoral Officer, as well numerous other witnesses who testified at the Standing Committee for Procedure and House Affairs, agreed that restoring both vouching and the use of the voter information card would return the franchise to Canadians across the country. In fact, I have heard from citizens in my riding of South Shore—St. Margarets that this will indeed assist and encourage them to get out to vote during the next federal election.

Bill C-76 would also restore the communications mandate of the Chief Electoral Officer and would allow Elections Canada to conduct increased outreach initiatives, including with members of first nations communities. It would also be possible to have advance polls in different locations on each day to better serve remote and isolated communities.

I encourage all hon. members to support this legislation, which would reinforce confidence in the integrity, fairness and transparency of Canada's electoral system.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rose in the House on May 25, in regard to the government shutting down debate on Bill C-76. This week, Bill C-76 returns to the House for debate at report stage.

We are three years into the Liberal majority mandate. Canadians trusted the Liberals to follow through on their big democratic reform promises. We all remember the big promise from the now Prime Minister that the 2015 election would be the last under the first-past-the-post system.

In Vancouver East, like many MPs, I held a town hall and consulted with my constituents. Overwhelmingly, the people of Vancouver East wanted to see a new voting system. They wanted every vote to count. They wanted to see proportional representation. This was echoed through the extensive consultation the committee undertook.

Sadly, after the election, the Prime Minister suggested that Canadians, "have a government they are most satisfied with” and “the motivation to want to change the electoral system is less urgent”. ln a truly disappointing show of brazen partisan bias, the Prime Minister then abruptly abandoned the promise to Canadians.

That is not what democracy is, and I hope that this broken promise, an insult to Canadians, is not forgotten in 2019.

As I said, after three years, we are only now reaching the report stage of a democratic reform bill. One may wonder what took so long.

Stéphane Perrault, Canada's Chief Electoral Officer, made it clear that any major electoral reforms needed to be passed by the end of April 2018. The 230-page Bill C-76 was not even tabled until April 30.

The Liberal government is treating democratic reform like stereotypical procrastinating high school students that no one likes working with on an important group project. They show up at the last minute. They do not do what they told everyone that they were going to do. Then they have the audacity to impose things on the rest of the group so that the work will fit into their schedule.

That is exactly what the Liberals did when they broke another democratic reform promise to Canadians by shutting down debate on an election bill.

Now that the bill is back in the House to be debated at report stage, my colleague the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley has informed me that the government continues to be the group partner nobody wants.

Bill amendments are like editing our legislative work. Unfortunately, the Liberal government, after showing up at the last minute and not completing the work it said it would do, refused to accept edits to fix the holes and missing pieces in its work.

My colleague, a tireless champion for improving Canada's democracy, tried to ensure that Bill C-76 protected voter information. He tried to strengthen privacy protections to prevent election meddling in the digital age. Those were rejected.

He tried to push the gender equality initiative of Kennedy Stewart, my former colleague and now mayor of Vancouver. The government would not even talk about it.

Why has the government broken so many promises to Canadians on this issue? Why has it put partisan interests ahead of improving our institutions? Why has it failed to move on legislation on electoral reform for so long?

Officers of Parliament

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is very unfortunate that democracy is not taken more seriously in this chamber in this regard, when we are discussing something as important as the selection process for our senior officers of Parliament. I struggle to think of something more important than this.

In addition to Bill C-76, which I touched on briefly before the Speaker so kindly asked for the respect and attention of others in the House, we are also seeing this blatantly with the office of a debates commissioner. I think this is incredibly unfortunate, because once again, the government is not only deciding that it is going to make up the rules itself to put its potential candidate in the best light, but worse than that, it is silencing Canadians. It is saying to Canadians that they do not have the opportunity to determine how they will select the next leader of their country, which is the most important office in the country. It is saying that the government will decide for them the format in which the questions are asked and how they will be asked. It is saying that Canadians do not have the right to decide how they will determine the process to determine the next leader of their country. It is absolutely shameful that this would possibly exist.

It is for these reasons, the striking void in Motion No. 170, that I cannot support this proposed legislation and that, unfortunately, my colleagues cannot support this piece of proposed legislation. As I said, where there is no process, there is a void. Where there is a void, there is the potential for partisanship and corruption, and we have seen that over and over again from the Liberal government.

I would like to finish with what I started with, which is that the motion before us, like so many things in life, is so beautiful in principle, so beautiful in theory, but in practice, not so much.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the idea behind Motion No. 170 is an absolutely beautiful one. We would all like to see a more democratic House and more democratic processes. Certainly for me, as the new shadow cabinet minister for democratic institutions, democracy and democratic processes in Canada and around the world are very close to my heart.

Unfortunately, Motion No. 170, like so many other things in life, is something which is beautiful in theory, but becomes an absolute disaster when it is applied. I believe that is what we are seeing here. We would have the romantic notion that there would be nine individuals who are appointed to this committee, which would see all sides working together from across the House to come up with the very best processes for each of the possibly most important officers in the government, certainly something which would have an incredible effect not only on the Government of Canada but also Canadian society.

Unfortunately, there are no guidelines given in the one-sentence motion that is before us. What I have learned in my experience not only in the public and foreign service but across government is that where there is no process, there is a void, and where there is a void, there is the potential for corruption. That is what we have seen time and time again from the current government, partisanship and corruption, when it is given the latitude to make decisions to choose the officers.

Let us evaluate the process at present. Why so many of my colleagues were very enchanted by the possibility of this motion, why they thought it was a great idea is that they are truly democratic. They truly want MPs to have more power to choose these officers, because what happens right now is these top officers of Parliament are appointed by the Prime Minister. As we have heard from other colleagues, usually it is a short list of, say, the name of one person. However, there is certainly the idea that there is input from all sides of the House. Now, we rarely see this happen.

I had the opportunity to provide input when I was a member of the Standing Committee on Official Languages. This happened after Madeleine Meilleur was to become the next official languages commissioner, but that is a whole other story I will get to later.

I remember we had the opportunity to ask Mr. Théberge questions. I knew at the time that our questions did not have much influence over the process and the outcome, because Mr. Théberge would become the official languages commissioner.

However, for at least an hour, we were allowed to feel as though we were part of the process, even though the candidate had already been chosen.

At least now this goes through a committee. We have the idea that perhaps we might be a small part of this process by which the officers of Parliament are chosen, but as I have said, unfortunately, there are no details with this motion, not one. In fact, I have a lot of fun thinking about how we might possibly choose our officers of Parliament. Maybe we would do it by playing horseshoes or a game of darts, I do not know, but there is really that much information in this motion in terms of how we would select these officers. As I have said, where there is no process, there is a void, and where there is a void, there is the potential for partisanship and corruption.

We know that the Liberal government will take the opportunity for corruption and partisanship time after time. We have seen this again and again. For example, there was Madeleine Meilleur, the best candidate.

In French, we would make a play on words with her name, saying that Madeleine Meilleur was the meilleure, or best, candidate.

Sure she was, but guess what else. She was a former Ontario Liberal MPP, someone very involved and intertwined with the party. The Liberals tried to sell it to us as the best choice of an independent candidate, when in fact, this was not the case. It was not someone from input from other parties. It was someone who was pre-selected by the government and fed to us as an independent choice, as the best choice. In fact, this was someone the government specifically chose.

Again, there is no process. There is a void in Motion No. 170, and where there is a void, there is the potential for corruption and partisanship, as we saw with Madam Meilleur.

It does not end there. We saw the same with Senate appointments. The Prime Minister decided that he would like independent Senate appointments. He made all the senators independent, and going forward, would choose senators based on merit. I will say that I was very insulted, as an Albertan, that our own democratic process in Alberta was completely ignored and denied. We had a senator in waiting who was put on the sidelines and ignored. Instead, there were the Prime Minister's favourite choices. Again, this shows that where there is no process, there is a void. Where there is a void, there is the potential for partisanship and corruption, which the government has shown time and time again.

I will also say that, unfortunately, as the new shadow minister for democratic institutions, I am seeing the same with Bill C-76, which is in the House this week going to report stage. I look forward to speaking to this tomorrow, with all of my colleagues, because we are seeing again the opportunity for the government to make the rules for itself. Its objective is very clear. It is not only to pass the bill but to win the next election and every election in perpetuity as a result of changing the rules—

Elections Modernization Act

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order to ask you to rule new clause 344.1 in Bill C-76, reported back from the Procedure and House Affairs Committee yesterday afternoon, out of order for offending the so-called parent act rule.

Before getting into the substance of my argument, I want to acknowledge that this is essentially an appeal of a committee chair's ruling. However, this issue falls within the allowable categories of such points of order. On April 28, 1992, at page 9801 of the Debates, Speaker Fraser said:

As the House knows, the Speaker does not intervene on matters upon which committees are competent to take decisions. However, in cases where a committee has exceeded its authority, particularly in relation to bills, the Speaker has been called upon to deal with such matters after a report has been presented to the House.

Your immediate predecessor cited this passage as an authority in a ruling he delivered in relation to the parent act rule on May 1, 2014, at page 4787 of the Debates.

Turning to the substance of my point of order, the parent act rule, page 771 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, states:

In the case of a bill referred to a committee after second reading, an amendment is inadmissible if it proposes to amend a statute that is not before the committee or a section of the parent Act, unless the latter is specifically amended by a clause of the bill.

That latter point traces back to citation 698(8)(b) of Beauschene's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, sixth edition, edited by Fraser, Dawson, and Holtby.

In the present case, an amendment, known in the Procedure and House Affairs Committee proceedings as “Liberal amendment 55”, purported to add a new clause to Bill C-76 for the purpose of making an amendment to section 498 of the Canada Elections Act. Bill C-76, as introduced, would amend both sections 497.5 and 499 of the Canada Elections Act, the two sections that bookend section 498, but not section 498 itself.

In ruling on my point of order at committee, the chair stated that there is an exception to the parent act rule for consequential amendments, but cited no authority in that regard. An exception such as that could have wide-sweeping consequences, which merits a passing reference somewhere in our various procedural authorities so that members may be guided appropriately.

No such reference, aside, or footnote articulating this exception to such a clear-cut rule appears in a canvassing of Bosc and Gagnon, O'Brien and Bosc, Marleau and Montpetit, Beauschene's or Erskine May. However, I have found the words of Mr. Speaker Fraser, from the ruling I cited earlier:

When a bill is referred to a standing or legislative committee of the House, that committee is only empowered to adopt, amend or negative the clauses found in that piece of legislation and to report the bill to the House with or without amendments. The committee is restricted in its examination in a number of ways. It cannot infringe on the financial initiative of the Crown, it cannot go beyond the scope of the bill as passed at second reading, and it cannot reach back to the parent act to make further amendments not contemplated in the bill no matter how tempting this may be.

This sentiment was reiterated much more recently by no less an authority than this House's esteemed former law clerk, Rob Walsh. Mr. Walsh, at page 115 of his book On the House: An Inside Look at the House of Commons, published just last autumn, offered this perspective from a drafter's point of view:

An amendment to a bill amending an existing Act of Parliament, if passed, cannot amend a section in the “parent act” that may be implicated in the change but is not being amended in the bill. As a lawyer, I found this rule problematic at times. Occasionally it seemed clear that a section in the parent act, untouched in the amending bill, would need to be amended if the bill's amendments were passed. This is a “consequential” amendment, an amendment that is a consequence of another amendment. The lawyer drafting an amendment for a private member...might see that another section in the parent act would also need to be amended if the member's amendment is to work effectively, but the procedural rules won't allow the consequential amendment to be proposed.

These citations, I submit, are quite clear that consequential amendments, no matter how tempting, cannot be made to a bill if such amendments run afoul of our clear rules and procedures.

Accordingly, Mr. Speaker, I would ask that you find new clause 344.1 to be out of order and that it be struck from Bill C-76. Nonetheless, should you find favour with the analysis of the member for Yukon, the chair of the committee, I would ask that the Chair's ruling in consideration of Standing Order 10 “state the...authority applicable to the case” so that all members will understand the applicable limits when contemplating amendments they might like to propose to legislation in the future.

Procedure and House Affairs

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 72nd report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs in relation to Bill C-76, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other acts and to make certain consequential amendments. The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House with amendments.

As we can understand, this project, with over 400 clauses, was huge. It took us over a year and there are many people to thank. I would like to thank the clerk, Andrew Lauzon; legislative clerk, Philippe Méla; researcher, Andre Barnes; the former chief electoral officer who, with his years of experience, provided the committee with 130 recommendations; the new Chief Electoral Officer and his very experienced professional staff; officials from the PCO; the minister's staff and parliamentary secretaries. I have high praise for all of the PROC committee members of all parties. During committee debate of over 300 proposed amendments, MPs from all five parties spoke and were all very professional and respectful of each other's views, even when they disagreed.

With years of wisdom from Elections Canada, the PCO, 57 witnesses, the department and ministry, parliamentary secretaries and MPs from all parties, we report a bill that we sincerely feel will greatly improve and facilitate voting and the electoral system in the dramatically changing digital world.

Pursuant to Standing Orders 104 and 114, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 73rd report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs regarding the membership of committees of the House, and I would like to move concurrence at this time.

Business of the House

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon, we will resume second reading debate of Bill C-83, on administrative segregation. This debate will continue tomorrow.

Next Monday, October 22, shall be an allotted day. Also, priority will be given to report stage and third reading debate of Bill C-76, the elections modernization act, as soon as it is reported back to the House.

Finally, I would like to remind everybody that next Thursday, pursuant to the order made earlier this week, the House will have Wednesday sitting hours to allow for the address in the House at 10:30 a.m. by the Prime Minister of the Netherlands.

Elections Canada

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Mr. Speaker, we are lucky to live in a country where we have fair and democratic elections. That is why Canadians are alarmed over a serious issue raised in a Toronto Sun exclusive report. The Sun reported that a female asylum seeker, who has only been in Canada 18 months, was urged by Elections Canada to register to vote. The Elections Canada letter told the woman to register by October 23, saying, “registering in advance will ensure you're on the voters list”. This woman's asylum-seeking husband said it is not an isolated incident. He told the Sun some friends of his on work permits have also been urged to register to vote.

This is why we are so worried about the Liberal elections bill, Bill C-76. It brings back voter ID cards and vouching, which could jeopardize our electoral system. In the true north strong and free, Canadians demand fair elections.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Sure. This is the Chief Electoral Officer's recommendation concerning transitional provisions in the event Bill C-76 takes effect during an election.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Is the effect of this, then, that all the pre-election advertising limits we've placed in Bill C-76, if the election were called earlier, would be voided?