This bill was last introduced in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session, which ended in September 2019.
Karina Gould Liberal
This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.
This is from the published bill.
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.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Because I like specific examples, let's look at that. Let's say somebody is setting up a misinformation robocall scheme, sending voters to the wrong polls and putting out misinformation. Does Bill C-76 do enough to prevent that threat from happening again?
As I said, I think this has been achieved mostly through the misuse—I characterize it as that, as “misuse”—of social media and electronic media. In that context, I'm not sure Bill C-76 does make a difference there, honestly.
I think the issues are broader than the electoral process.
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Does Bill C-76 go far enough in terms of our being able to go into the next election knowing that there is no similar circumstance that could take place in Canada with misinformation or with the amount of money that can flow through Canadian organizations who are participating in our election?
Certainly, I think, my view is that there's been very...if any, evidence of that in Canada.
That being said, I think it would be wise to be proactive and not wait for something to happen. I think Bill C-76 tried to do a few very valid things there, but again, as I mentioned, there's the whole area of social media and the whole area of being able to track the funds that come through the system.
There are a few things.
Bill C-76 prohibits foreign contributions. The problem is that third party entities receive funds from various sources, and those sources lose their character as they get commingled in the general revenues of the third party. That is one aspect. Bill C-76 prohibits contributions but does not address the commingling.
Personally, I am of the view that if third parties, specifically in the context of a short electoral period and a short pre-writ period, want to run political campaigns, they should be governed around generally the same principles as other participants in the system. This is recognizing that third parties are distinct, with a purpose other than to achieve office—in fact, they don't—but still, if they wish to participate in the campaign, fine, but they should be subject to a regime that limits their influence proportionate to the message they want carried.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I am really happy to be before this committee, which has been part of my professional life for close to 10 years. I am here today as an individual, so any views or comments that I may make as part of this appearance are my personal views only and do not represent the views of Elections Canada.
In my opinion, Bill C-76 manages to significantly modernize services to electors. It makes the electoral system more accessible and inclusive, and it improves the fairness of our system.
You will not be surprised that, consequently, I very much endorse the proposed legislation. Bill C-76 was informed by the feedback of electors, the experience of the 2015 election, and the experience of field officials, candidates, parties, which fed into my recommendations report of 2016, which was itself reviewed and the object of three reports by this committee. My point here is that much in the bill has already been extensively studied and generally endorsed by this committee.
I have heard there are new issues—issues that have emerged or become more acute since the various studies. The third party regime has become seen as overly exposed to foreign influence, as well as being somewhat unfair in the context of fixed-date elections. Foreign influence or interference in national elections in some countries suggests that Canada needs to be proactive. Social media and technology bring great value to public discourse and civic engagement, but as you all know, we are increasingly finding that they can be used to disinform and manipulate opinion and undermine confidence in our institutions.
There are a few key areas that I would like to stress for the committee today. The first one is the privacy regime. Bill C-76 proposes to establish a requirement for political parties to set and maintain a privacy policy as a prerequisite of their registration. It's a good but very small step, given our context. It fails to set clear standards that would be consistent with universal principles of privacy protection. It lacks independent oversight and an effective compliance mechanism.
A possible approach would be to set out clearly that parties must adhere to PIPEDA principles; provide an independent review, either by the Privacy Commissioner or an independent auditor; and provide for appropriate remedies for failing to adhere to the principles.
The third party regime also sees significant and very substantial, probably the most substantial, reform that is contained in Bill C-76. It expands the regime to include not only advertising but also partisan activities as well as election survey expenses, setting a limit of $350,000 during the writ period and $700,000 during the pre-writ period, excluding, in that case, issue advertising. It does require three reports to be filed by a third party. I'm not sure why this is needed. It seems to be a lot more than is required from candidates or any other participants in the electoral process. They must maintain a separate bank account to pay for their expenses. They are prohibited from using foreign funds and are subject to anti-collusion provisions to circumvent spending limits. Their returns must be audited, and the auditor must certify that no foreign funds were used.
What Bill C-76 does not do is put an effective restriction on the commingling of funds. Foreign money may be laundered through various Canadian entities to make it look Canadian—that's also an issue, to my mind. There's no limit on the source or amount of contributions except that they cannot be from foreign entities, of course.
A possible approach to addressing those concerns would be difficult to conceive in the context of Bill C-76. Designing a new system would require that we set up a system of contributions analogous to what exists for other political entities, yet it would be fraught by challenges in meeting the test of the charter. With the time being what it is, I am not sure this can be done effectively, but who knows? I am sharing that with the committee.
Foreign influence is another issue that is being addressed by Bill C-76, which does prohibit contributions by foreigners. Foreign third parties are forbidden to spend on advertising or partisan activities, including election surveys, during the pre-writ and writ periods. It prohibits the sale of electoral advertising to foreigners, and many of the new generic provisions would, of course, apply to foreigners.
What Bill C-76 does not do is prevent the circumvention of the prohibitions, especially relating to the flow of funds to Canadian entities. A possible approach here would be making sure that a solid anti-collusion provision is added to the act. Beyond that, we would need to look, I believe, at a coordinated international approach to limit the interference and prevent the interference of foreigners in national elections.
The last emerging issue I want to raise with this committee today is the one regarding social media platforms and technology. In my view, Bill C-76 does little regarding the abuses in this area, possibly because issues are much larger than electoral matters and may be better handled through other legislation. Also, it is a truly emerging issue that few countries have successfully regulated today. It is compounded by the fact that social media and technology have no frontiers. It adds to the challenge of regulating those activities.
Bill C-76 does not prevent disinformation, propaganda, or artificial promotion of pseudo-info through trolls and bots. Maybe that's something this committee should consider, or at least provide clarity in this regard. A possible approach would be to create a repository of all digital advertising related to an election. Make sure that platform owners are accountable for illegal use of their platforms, and—to my mind quite important—task an organization to undertake public education on how to assess the reliability of information that you see on the web or on various platforms. I think the more Canadians are aware of the issue and the traps of misinformation, the better they are at recognizing it and the better they are at exercising their judgment during the election.
Finally, I have a few other considerations. They're maybe not of significant importance, but I would like to raise them for the attention of the committee.
The first one is vouching. Bill C-76 does reintroduce vouching in our electoral system. Personally, I would have liked to see it extended to staff in seniors homes and long-term care facilities. I am struck by the Etobicoke case where a nurse, serving electors in a long-term care facility, out of her goodwill simply vouched for the electors who were present there and who had insufficient or inadequate ID or documentation. When the case proceeded before the court, all the judges who looked at it—the case went up to the Supreme Court—found that there was no leeway there. Since the nurse did not reside in the same polling division as the residents in the long-term care facilities, the ballots were void, yet there was no question about the eligibility of those electors.
I put that on the table for your consideration. I think the risks in those confined, closed residential establishments are very limited in terms of possible fraud. All the people can be tracked easily. The worst thing is that Elections Canada visits those long-term care facilities to establish who resides there during the election. It's unbelievable that two weeks later, we can't recognize those people. I leave that for your consideration.
The other issue that I'm not sure was an oversight but I thought was concurred in by this committee was the provision of a subsidy to candidates' official agents. I think quality official agents are difficult to find and difficult to retain. They bear the crux of the burden imposed by the act in terms of reporting and tracking expenses, and I feel very strongly that these people—who devote an exceptional number of hours, these days mostly as volunteers, for well beyond 36 days and in fact, sometimes off and on for a year easily—would greatly benefit from a small compensation for the service they provide, because they make such a contribution to you as candidates but also to the integrity of our system. Again, I thought this matter had been agreed to in committee. I proposed it in 2016, and I'm bringing it back again today as I have this occasion.
I know also that there is nothing in the bill on the leaders debate. My only point here is not suggesting it should be part of this bill at this point, but certainly time is pressing to address the issue if we are to have any independent framework set up for 2019.
In closing, the points that I made earlier this morning should not be seen as undermining the importance of Bill C-76, which is a sound piece of legislation that is squarely anchored in the core values underpinning free and fair elections. Like any draft legislation, it is susceptible to improvement through the work of parliamentarians. I hope, however, that the best does not become the enemy of the good, as we say, in the quest for improvement.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I will be happy to take questions.
The Chair Liberal Larry Bagnell
Good morning. Welcome to the 109th meeting of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.
Today, as we continue our study of Bill C-76, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other acts and to make certain consequential amendments, we are pleased to be joined by Marc Mayrand, the former chief electoral officer.
Thank you for being here, Mr. Mayrand. We had you here at the beginning of our study on this, and it's great to have you back. I hope you're enjoying retirement.
Karina Gould LiberalMinister of Democratic Institutions
Mr. Speaker, as I told my hon. colleague in committee, Bill C-76 does not limit travel at all. When he is talking about advertising, it limits it for any party during the period, and that is only with regard to advertising. Perhaps he is thinking about a previous Conservative minister who perhaps put a CPC logo when he was delivering Canada child benefit cheques. That is why we are doing this, because Canadians want to ensure integrity in our electoral system.
Karina Gould LiberalMinister of Democratic Institutions
Mr. Speaker, as you know, we introduced Bill C-76 and we hope we can work with all of our House of Commons colleagues to improve democracy so Canadians can vote. Many Canadians, 176 in fact, were not able to vote in the last election. This is a real problem for future voters. What are we going to do about it here? We are going to work together to make sure everyone in Canada can vote.
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Mr. Speaker, here we are in the House, on Wednesday, May 30, at 8:45. I should mention that it is 8:45 p.m., for the many residents of Beauport—Limoilou who I am sure are tuning in. To all my constituents, good evening.
We are debating this evening because the Liberal government tabled very few significant government bills over the winter. Instead, they tabled an astounding number of private members' bills on things like swallows' day and beauty month. Sometimes my colleagues and I can hardly help laughing at this pile of utterly trivial bills. I also think that this process of randomly selecting the members who get to table bills is a bit past its prime. Maybe it should be reviewed. At the same time, I understand that it is up to each member to decide what kind of bill is important to him or her.
The reason we have had to sit until midnight for two days now is that, as my colleague from Perth—Wellington said, the government has been acting like a typical university student over the past three months. That comparison is a bit ridiculous, but it is true. The government is behaving like those students who wait until the last minute to do their assignments and are still working on them at 3 a.m. the day before they are due because they were too busy partying all semester. Members know what I mean, even though that paints a rather stereotypical picture of students; most of them do not do things like that.
In short, we have a government that, at the end of the session, has realized that time is running out and that it only has three weeks left to pass some of its legislative measures, some of which are rather lengthy bills that are key to the government's legislative agenda. One has to wonder about that.
The Liberals believe these bills to be important. However, because of their lack of responsibility over the past three months, we were unable to debate these major bills that will make significant changes to our society. Take for example, Bill C-76, which has to do with the electoral reforms that the Liberals want to make to the voting system, the way we vote, protection of the vote, and identification. There is also Bill C-49 on transportation in Canada, a very lengthy bill that we have not had time to examine properly.
Today we are debating Bill C-57 on sustainable development. This is an important topic, but for the past three years I have been getting sick and tired of seeing the Liberal government act as though it has a monopoly on environmental righteousness. I searched online to get an accurate picture of the record of Mr. Harper's Conservative government from 2006 to 2015, and I came across some fascinating results. I want to share this information very honestly with the House and my Liberal colleagues so that they understand that even though we did not talk incessantly about the environment, we achieved some excellent concrete results.
I want to read a quote from www.mediaterre.org, a perfectly legitimate site:
Stephen Harper's Canadian government released its 2007 budget on March 19. The budget allocated $4.5 billion in new investments to some 20 environmental projects. These measures include a $2,000 rebate for all electronic-vehicle or alternative-fuel purchases, and the creation of a $1.5-billion EcoTrust program to help provinces reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The Liberals often criticize us for talking about the environment, but we did take action. For example, we set targets. We proposed reducing emissions to 30% below 2005 levels by 2030. The Liberals even retained these same targets as part of the Paris agreement.
They said we had targets, but no plan. That is not true. Not only did we have the $1.5-billion ecotrust program, but we also had a plan that involved federal co-operation.
Allow me to quote the premier of Quebec at the time, Jean Charest, who was praising the plan that was going to help Quebec—his province, my province—meet its greenhouse gas emissions targets. Jean Charest and Mr. Harper issued a joint press release.
Mr. Harper said, “Canada's New Government is investing to protect Canadians from the consequences of climate change, air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.” He was already recognizing it in 2007.
Mr. Charest said, “In June 2006, our government adopted its plan to combat climate change. This plan has been hailed as one of the finest in North America. With Ottawa contributing financially to this Quebec initiative, we will be able to achieve our objectives.”
It was Mr. Charest who said that in 2007, at a press conference with the prime minister.
I will continue to read the joint press release from the two governments, “As a result of this federal funding, the Government of Quebec has indicated that it will be able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 13.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide or equivalent below its anticipated 2012 level.”
What is more, the $1.5-billion ecotrust that was supposed to be allocated and was allocated to every province provided $339 million to Quebec alone. That was going to allow Quebec to engage in the following: investments to improve access to new technologies for the trucking sector; a program to develop renewable energy sources in rural regions; a pilot plant for production of cellulosic ethanol; promotion of geothermal heat pumps in the residential sector; support for technological research and innovation for the reduction and sequestration of greenhouse gases. This is probably one of those programs that is helping us make our oil sands increasingly environmentally friendly by allowing us to capture the carbon that comes from converting the sands to oil. There are also measures for the capture of biogas from landfill sites, for waste treatment and energy recovery, and finally for Canada ecotrust.
I invite our Liberal colleagues to listen to what I am going to say. In 2007, Steven Guilbeault of Greenpeace said the following: “We are pleased to see that after negotiating for more than a year, Quebec has finally obtained the money it needs to move towards meeting the Kyoto targets.”
Who made it possible for Quebec to move towards meeting its Kyoto objectives? It was the Harper government, a Conservative government, which established the $1.5-billion ecotrust fund in 2007 with monies from the budget surplus.
Not only did we have a plan to meet the targets we proposed, but this was also a plan that could only be implemented if the provinces agreed to the targets. It was a plan that was funded through the budget surplus, that did not further tax Canadians, and that provided money directly, without any conditions, other than the fundamental requirement that it had to help reduce climate change, which was philosophically important. Any and all measures taken to reach that goal were left entirely to the discretion of the provinces.
Mr. Harper, like a good Conservative who supported decentralization and like a true federalist leader, said that he was giving $400 million to each province so it could move forward with its plan.
By 2015, after 10 years of Conservative government, the country had not only weathered the worst economic crisis, the worst recession in history since the 1930s, but it had also reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 2% and increased the gross domestic product for all Canadians while lopping three points off the GST and lowering income taxes for families with two children by an average of $2,000 per year.
If that is not co-operative federalism, if those are not real results, if that is not a concrete environmental plan, then I do not know what is. Add to that the fact that we achieved royal assent for no less than 25 to 35 bills every session.
In contrast, during this session, in between being forced to grapple with scandals involving the carbon tax, illegal border crossings, and the Trans Mountain project, this government has barely managed to come up with four genuinely important bills.
By contrast, we expanded parks and protected Canada's wetlands. Our environmental record is exceptional.
Furthermore, we allowed debate. For example, we debated Bill C-23 on electoral reform for four days. The Liberals' electoral reform was debated for two hours.
I am sad, but I am happy to debate until midnight because debating is my passion.
Fayçal El-Khoury Liberal Laval—Les Îles, QC
Mr. Speaker, Bill C-76 is a generational overhaul of the Canada Elections Act for the 21st century.
In 2014, Elections Canada struck its Advisory Group for Disability Issues to provide advice about accessibility. All Canadians have the right to participate fully in the electoral process.
Can the Prime Minister update the House on the measures introduced to ensure that more Canadians can vote?
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Mr. Speaker, on this side of the House, we know that the Prime Minister does not care too much for any opposition, but we are here to hold the government to account and to stand up for the interests of Canadians whether he likes it or not. It is evident that he is trying to ram through his new electoral legislation using closure, time allocation, or whatever other trick he has up his sleeve. Will the Prime Minister commit today to allowing Bill C-76 the proper due diligence and study that Canadians know it deserves?
Candice Bergen Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Mr. Speaker, here we go again: another spring, another motion from the Liberal government to sit until midnight. In fact, it is exactly the same motion for midnight sittings that the Liberals used last year. It also has the same flaws that last year's motion contained, and quite frankly, the issues dominating debate in the House are pretty much the same.
Last spring, the Prime Minister was under an ethics investigation. This spring, now that the Ethics Commissioner has found the Prime Minister guilty in four different ways, it is the Prime Minister's friend, the fisheries minister, who is embroiled in what has become known as “clamscam”. Of course, the finance minister is under investigation as well. Boy oh boy, round and round we go.
Last spring, the Liberals were getting ready to ram through the House major changes to the way Parliament works, all to their benefit, of course, because the Liberals never do anything unless it is going to benefit them. Conservatives fought tooth and nail when the Liberals tried to ram through those changes that would erode our democracy. Well, this spring it is the very rules about electing members of Parliament to the House that the Liberals are trying to rig, and to rush those changes through Parliament as we speak.
We see this time and time again. When the Liberals are failing at something, they try to change the rules to benefit themselves. Last spring, the Liberals tabled a budget with a runaway deficit and no balanced budget in sight for decades. This spring, another whopping deficit and still no plan to bring the budget back to balance. Today, they made an announcement of another $4.5 billion to buy a 60-year-old pipeline, which did not need government money as we already had a private investor who was putting billions into it and creating jobs. However, now the federal government is giving them $4.5 billion to take down to Houston. Who knows what the costs will be to build this pipeline.
Let us remember that the federal government is not that good at building much of anything. We can look at its records on ships, planes, and the Phoenix system. I do not really trust the government to build anything.
I digress. My point is that more and more billions of taxpayers' dollars are being spent by the Liberal drunken sailor government. We see questionable ethics and self-serving rule rigging, taxing, and spending. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Now let me turn to the principle of government Motion No. 22. Let me be clear. Conservatives believe in hard work. We believe in doing hard work rather than just talking about it. We do not have a problem at all with working a little extra in the spring. In fact, it is something of an annual ritual around here. We usually work harder in the spring as we gear up for the summer.
The last Conservative government also asked the House of Commons to put in some extra hours in the spring, but one thing we never did in government was to steal time for government business on opposition days. The current government did this last year and is proposing to do it again. It is probably going to ram it through again this year.
Let me just explain once again, for our constituents who are watching, what this means. Paragraph (j) of Motion No. 22 would shortchange the opposition, both the Conservatives and the New Democratic Party, on the only four opposition days remaining this spring. Let me just offer a quick explanation. Over the course of one year, the rules of the House of Commons require the government to set aside 22 sitting days for discussion of topics of the opposition's choosing. That is 22 days in total for the NDP and the Conservatives to talk about issues they believe are important.
We get to discuss the opposition topic all day. Regardless of whether it is a short sitting day, such as a Wednesday, when we have our caucus meeting, or a longer day, such as a Tuesday, we debate the opposition topic all day. That is why we call them “opposition days”. It simply does not matter how long the day is. We get to debate our opposition topic from the beginning of the day to the end of the day.
We have brought forward some very important topics during our opposition days, topics such as support for Kinder Morgan. Interestingly, the government voted against that topic when we brought it forward, but it is now buying the pipeline. That is quite something.
We have brought forward very important topics, such as helping Yazidi girls and women who were victims of ISIS terrorists. We have brought forward motions supporting Israel. There are a number of topics that we have brought forward on opposition days. As I said, it does not matter how long that day it is; it is our day.
If the government is asking the opposition to work longer days, we are fine with that. It only makes sense and it is only fair for the government to also be willing to discuss the opposition topics on those longer days as well, but it is not willing to do that. We have two opposition days left, and I believe the NDP has two as well. Even though we are going to be sitting longer hours, according to Motion No. 22, on opposition days the government is going to stop us earlier from talking about the issue that we have brought forward, probably at 5:30 p.m. or 6:30 p.m. The government will then continue with its business for the rest of the day, but we, the opposition, will not be able to talk about the topic we have brought forward. We do not have a lot of days to do it, and those days are important.
Again, let me remind everyone that when we were in government we did not do that. We might have sat a little longer in the spring, but opposition days also went longer in the spring. It is unbelievable that the Prime Minister, who was elected promising to respect parliamentarians, disrespects the job that we do here so much that he will not even let opposition topics be debated on these longer sitting days.
Wait, did the Prime Minister not recently fly down to New York and encourage people to listen to those who disagree with them? I think I remember that news coverage. There was our Prime Minister, standing at second base in Yankee Stadium with hand on heart, which we have come to learn is the Prime Minister's telltale sign that sanctimony and hypocrisy will soon be following. Nonetheless, there he was, telling university graduates about the importance of tolerating and listening to other people's views. However, our “do as I say, not as I do” Prime Minister has a different attitude when he comes back to his own country and our House of Commons.
Let us not forget that the Liberal Prime Minister, who claims to believe in tolerating other people's views, has imposed a values test on Canadians and organizations looking for help to hire summer students. Those views he does not want to listen to. Their views he is not going to tolerate. Their views have to be shut down because the Prime Minister does not think they are worthy of listening to. He will go to the U.S. and lecture people in the United States about listening to other people's views, but when he comes back to Canada he does the exact opposite. It is unbelievable.
The same Liberal Prime Minister surely did not seem to have tolerance for opposing views when he fired the former chair of the fisheries committee, the hon. member for Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, because he disagreed with the Prime Minister over the summer jobs values test.
The same Prime Minister kicked the hon. member for Saint John—Rothesay off the committee as punishment for disagreeing with the Prime Minister about his dangerous and reckless plan for small business tax changes. Do members remember all that?
Do they remember the feminist Prime Minister? This one was particularly galling for me. He ordered his MPs to veto the election of the hon. member for Lethbridge, who was duly elected to the House of Commons, as chair of the status of women committee, a role which was filled by nomination of the official opposition, because he did not agree with her views on an issue of personal conscience. He was telling an elected member of Parliament what she can think, what she can believe, and what she can hold dear to her heart. It is utter hypocrisy.
Sadly, this sort of behaviour is not limited to just the Prime Minister. Let me be very clear. I do not think that all Liberal MPs are like this, but, sadly, a lot of them are seeing their leader do it, and they think it gives them permission to do the same thing.
Leadership starts at the top. This is not just a cliché; it is true. An organization's culture is often shaped and moulded, and the signal is sent by the boss. That fact of life is no different with the government. The Minister of Environment and Climate Change was on national television a few weekends ago, saying she has no time for politicians who disagree with her.
Earlier this spring, the Minister of Finance called our deputy leader, the hon. member for Milton, a neanderthal because she did not agree with him. There was no apology, no outrage. They will say one thing and do something completely different.
Now we have the government House leader bringing forward a motion that cuts off debate on opposition motions. No longer will they be opposition days, but opposition half days. The Prime Minister apparently cannot stomach having to listen to opposition ideas for a few extra hours. Maybe the Prime Minister should not have flown off to New York City to give a sermon on tolerance of different opinions. Maybe he should be reflecting on his own words, and at next week's cabinet meeting, maybe he should lay his hand on his heart and give the same speech to all of his colleagues. Certainly the disrespect the Liberals have been showing for ideas is matched by the disrespect they have for Parliament.
However, it is not just weeks of legislation that the Liberals have decided to hinder Parliament with, but also that we have not talked about recently that is incredibly important. Parliament has not been consulted on ordering Canadian troops into harms way as part of a United Nations mission in the west African nation of Mali. In a breach of tradition and practice, the Prime Minister is refusing to consult Parliament on this deployment. The seriousness of this deployment of our soldiers into an active war zone, which is widely considered to be the most dangerous UN mission in the world today, warrants a debate and a vote here in the House of Commons.
Again, the Prime Minister does not want to hear any voices that might disagree with him, that might challenge him, or that might ask him questions that he has no answer for. The Prime Minister, instead of doing what a leader does and taking the heat that comes with leadership, refuses to show the respect that this House, but mostly that our soldiers and their families, deserve.
On the security front, indeed, all Canadians have a vivid memory of the fiasco the was the Prime Minister's journey to India in February. The fumbling and flailing around that we saw from the government and the Prime Minister in the days that followed led to a full-blown diplomatic incident with our ally India, the largest democracy in the world. Conservatives wanted the national security advisor, Daniel Jean, to appear before a parliamentary committee to explain how those conspiracy theories came to be and his comments to the media. Members will recall that for weeks and weeks, because we had seen media reports about Daniel Jean telling the media that India had been part of this so-called conspiracy, we had wanted to talk to him. We wanted him to explain what was going on when a man convicted of attempted murder of a former Indian minister was invited to pal with and hang around with the Liberals at swanky parties in India.
By the way, we have a question on the Order Paper on that. The government will not tell us how much it cost. It is saying that there are just so many departments that it has to look into to find out. How much did all of those parties cost? I am pretty sure they cost a whole lot of money. We are not going to give up on getting those answers, because taxpayers deserve to know. However, the Prime Minister was going to have nothing to do with that kind of exercise and accountability.
Members will remember the Liberal convention in Halifax last month, where the party's outgoing president, the same Anna Gainey who joined the Prime Minister on his illegal vacation on the billionaire's private Caribbean island, told delegates that “now more than ever, we need to have his back”, referring to the Prime Minister. Well, just a few weeks before that, the Liberal caucus got a taste of having the Prime Minister's back. The Liberal whip told those on the Liberal backbench that they needed to have the Prime Minister's back and would have to be voting for close to 40 hours. They would have to have his back by voting down the opposition day motion to have the national security advisor appear at committee. They would have to have his back by voting for potentially up to 40 hours. That was quite something. They were not going to give in. At the end of all of that, “Oh captain our captain”, they were cheering on the Prime Minister.
Then a week later they realized they had better make sure the national security advisor appeared. He appeared, lo and behold, miraculously. I just want to know how good it felt for the Liberal back bench to have the Prime Minister's back. After all that was said and done, after the extreme pressure laid on by our amazing Conservative team, the government relented. The national security advisor appeared at the public safety committee. It must be so fulfilling, so rewarding to be part of the Liberal caucus, when things like that happen. It must make them proud to go home and tell their constituents what they were doing.
The Liberals wanted to change the way the government asks for spending permission and the way the House of Commons studies these spending proposals. That is what has brought us to where the main estimates have changed. This year the main estimates include a single $7 billion lump sum under the buzz phrase “budget implementation”. The government claimed it would be focused on initiatives announced in this year's budget. The wording provides no assurance.
Again, the Liberals are ramming this through. The Parliamentary Budget Officer, a dedicated public servant who has had a long career here on Parliament Hill, told the Senate committee he had never seen anything like it. His office stated:
While the Government has included a new Budget Implementation Vote for $7.0 billion, the initiatives to be funded through this vote are not reflected in the Departmental Plans. Hence, there remains a lack of alignment between the Budget initiatives and planned results.
Let me summarize that: Liberal slush fund. That is what the $7 billion amounts to.
There are so many more things I could go on talking about. Last year the government tried to ram through changes to the Standing Orders. It wanted to eliminate Friday sittings. The Prime Minister did not want to be here to answer questions. Of course, the list goes on.
Is there a pattern here? Yes, there is. When the chips are down for the Liberal government, its go-to move is to change the game, to rig the rules, to tilt the scales in its favour, always to regain and have its own advantage. We have seen a pattern.
I will close with this, in Bill C-76, the so-called elections modernization act, here is what is happening. The Prime Minister is having a hard time raising money, even with his cash for access. His policies are so bad, people who have supported the Liberal Party for generations cannot support it anymore. Today, I think Kinder Morgan is going to be another example for these lifelong Liberals. Liberal policy is so bad, so destructive of our competitiveness, and so destructive of our foreign relations that longtime Liberals are done writing cheques to the party. The Prime Minister cannot raise money anymore.
What is he going to do? He is changing the election rules in Bill C-76 so that third party funding can flow before the election and help him, but he is limiting the ability of parties that have raised money, who have had people donate willingly to their party. Those parties, like the Conservatives, actually have had a lot of people, hundreds of thousands of people, support them through financial donations.
The Prime Minister says that he does not like that, because he cannot raise money, because he is doing such a terrible job and is such a failure that nobody wants to donate to his party. However, the Leader of the Opposition, our leader, is doing well and the Conservatives are doing well. We have good ideas, stable, strong ideas that are getting donations from supporters right across the country.
The Prime Minister says he is going to change the rules so that the party cannot spend it. The Prime Minister has not learned that he cannot get away with it. I know he does not respect Parliament, but we do respect Parliament. I believe that members of Parliament who have been duly elected, in the end, will also respect Parliament and will follow through and do the right thing.
I hope that the government accepts our amendment. All we are asking for is that on opposition, days we have the same ability to to bring our issues forward, even if it is uncomfortable for the government. It is called democracy. Even if the Prime Minister will not respect democracy, I sincerely ask my colleagues on the other side of the House to respect democracy, support our amendment, and then we can finish the work that we are doing here in the House of Commons.
Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Mr. Speaker, the member for Winnipeg North very often makes it difficult to dignify his comments with a response, but I am going to make an exception in this case and respond to what he said, because I just think it is factually way off base.
First of all, I do not think he even realized that I moved an amendment initially, but if he did and had he been listening to what I was saying, he would know that the amendment is actually trying to establish an offer to the government to make the amendment by the Conservatives more palatable to the government.
That is a negotiation. I am not saying that there are not good ideas coming from various places in this debate, but the idea of moving the amendment was to actually try to make an offer so that we could all come to an agreement on the later sittings.
The principle of that offer is simple. It is just to say the business that comes from the opposition should not be accorded any less importance or value than the business coming from the government. That is not unreasonable.
The member will recall that many times throughout this session the NDP has proposed unanimous consent motions to move bills through many stages at once in an effort to help expedite the passage of legislation by the government. If the member, who apparently spends a lot of time in the House but not necessarily paying attention, would go back and consult the Debates, he would see that the NDP has been making many attempts on various pieces of legislation to try to expedite the passage of the government's legislation. In fact, in some cases we are more responsible for the success of the government's legislation than the government itself.
I would repeat again in this House the fact that the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley made an offer to the Minister of Democratic Institutions on how to move forward with Bill C-76 in a fair and timely way and allow Canadians to contribute to that conversation, but the offer was not even dignified with a response from the minister.
The Liberals say they want to work with us, but when we write to them with a proposal on how to work together, they do not even get back to us.
Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
Mr. Speaker, I am somewhat disappointed in my New Democratic friends. I would have figured that they would see the benefits of having active debate in the legislature on important pieces of legislation. Rather, what I have witnessed, which I will have the opportunity to expand upon, is a variation of different games being played.
I have spent over 20 years in opposition and I am aware of many different types of games. Having said that, I would argue that the types of legislation we are talking about are in democracy's best interest. When we talk about Bill C-76 and when we talk about other pieces of legislation, we are talking about really good stuff for Canada's middle class in many different ways, yet time and time again New Democrats and Conservatives have one objective: to not let anything pass. They work together. It is that unholy alliance. Nothing is good; prevent everything from passing.
Does the member not realize that being a constructive opposition means that at times he might have to work a few extra hours? That is really what this motion is all about. All governments of all political stripes have moved this motion in the past. Why does the NDP not want to put in those extra hours in order to pass some good legislation that Canadians will benefit from?