Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Feb. 13th, 2014

[An hon. member]

Hear, hear!

[An hon. member]

Also, you've scared a lot of people—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

The fact remains that the first step should have been that consultation with the Chief Electoral Officer. That didn't happen.

So you say to yourself, “Well, okay, maybe that was a mistake or an oversight, and I'm sure he would have sat down with one of the key stakeholder groups on the issue of democracy in Canada.” That's Fair Vote Canada. They're not exactly wild-eyed radicals. They care about the details of democracy. Did the minister meet with them? No, the minister didn't meet with them.

All right. Well, what about our concerns about the implications of some of these changes as they might affect our first nations people and other Canadians who live in the far north? Voting in the far north is very, very different from voting in downtown Toronto.

If I may, Chair, I know a little of this.... I'm sure you'll recall that I've been on six or seven international election observation missions. Sometimes I was out in the villages in some of those countries. I've seen first-hand the challenges they have. They're not unlike ours when you're remote, when you're further away. In many cases, they have other challenges, but it's surprising how similar they are.

There was no consideration. How many first nations leaders did they talk to? None. How many northern leaders? None. For other groups we're concerned about that will be disenfranchised, how many of their representative groups did the national minister meet with? None. Who did the minister meet with? Did the minister meet with anybody outside of the Conservative world? Not that we know of. Give me a break.

There is nothing fair or democratic about this process. This is an abuse of majority power. I remind this government that it's a majority of seats that came from less than 40% of the people who went out and voted. You would think they'd be a little more respectful of the fact that they have a majority, but they got it through the barest means possible, and in a way, that underscores our need to change our process. I was part of a government that got elected with less than 40% of the vote and has 100% of the power, and I'm saying it's unfair. I agree. How, in a democracy, can 40% of the vote give you 100% of the power? How can that be? Yet it is. So the very least we ask for on behalf of Canadians who care about this is just an opportunity to go and visit them where they live and where we think there are concerns.

Chair, it makes you wonder what it is the government is afraid of. Is it that their bills and their arguments hold up here, under the safe political security of the Ottawa bubble, because it's all just arguments and debate? Is that what they're worried about? Is that what they're afraid of, that if we go to the far north they'll be faced with a stark reality that puts the lie to their argument that this is not going to disenfranchise? Is that what they're afraid of? I don't know.

Are they afraid that there might be a demonstration or two, or that there might be a protest sign, or somebody who's upset with what's going on with the Senate, or somebody who's upset about robocalls, or somebody who's upset about the in-and-out scandal? There are a lot of democratic reasons for Canadians to be upset with this government. Might that happen? I don't know. Maybe, but so what? It's a free country. A couple of people with a placard making a minor demonstration outside the meeting room, it seems to me that's one of the good things about living in Canada: we have the right to express ourselves.

If there's a meeting going on and I, as a Canadian citizen, have something to say about that, and I want to stand outside with a little bit of a sign that says whatever I want it to say, in perfectly legal language, that makes a political statement, I remind colleagues that this is not a joke. Some of my friends have family from those countries where if you hold up that sign, it's the last time you're ever seen.

How far away from that are we when we have a government that refuses to hold a public meeting out in the community because they're afraid to face those signs? We're not that far away from it. We maybe didn't arrest the person who had the sign just because they had a sign, but just because they have a sign, we won't hold a meeting there.

Whether it's that the government is afraid that their arguments won't hold up when we actually go out into the communities where people live, that when we go to Downtown Eastside in Vancouver these members are faced with the stark reality and they feel they can't defend it then because it's too real, that it's not just arguments here in Ottawa, that it's—

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

[Inaudible--Editor]

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Yes, of course.

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

I just wanted to know if I missed anything important.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Oh, I can repeat it for you. It was all really important.

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

Would you mind going back to—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

At which part did you leave? I can start it again.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

No, David, you go right ahead. I'm just kidding.

Sorry for the interruption. My apologies.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Mr. Christopherson, I think it would go back to the part where you said “Mr. Chairman”.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Is that right?

Okay, then, there was this document, and that document, and....

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

I like the camaraderie, but carry on, Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

No, Chair, I do appreciate that. I appreciate the levity. I enjoy working with Mr. Lukiwski, Mr. Reid, and others. I do. I can't speak for the rest of my crowd, but I like working with them.

In fact, Chair, this was the dynamic that existed. I was the lead at the time and Mr. Lukiwski was the lead for the government at the time, and this was exactly the kind of dynamic that happened. We'd do 20 to 25 minutes of serious work, talking through the election rules, because we're all affected by them. Nobody was trying to get an upper hand. It was a really good exercise in watching democracy in a positive way, actually getting something done. Read the report. A lot of work went into it.

This is what we want to do. This is really where we'd rather be: dealing with the substantive matters in this kind of tone, Chair, with respect for you.

Are you signalling something?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Yes. I was just thinking that you haven't been saying enough about how good the chair was during that last study, but carry on.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Oh, okay. Good. Well, I know where my bread is buttered, Chair—

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

—and I will certainly sprinkle those deserving compliments.

But it's true. There were a lot of compliments about the way you chaired it, because there were no marching orders from anywhere to anyone. We really were independently sitting here as members of Parliament elected by our constituents. We elected you as our chair. You were fair-minded. You moved us through the process, and there was respect. Then we also set our own deadlines, and we made sure as much as possible that we moved along.

I come back again to the beginning, Chair, when I said that the official opposition was trying to indicate good faith by putting in our motion something opposition parties rarely do, because it boxes you in. The government is already playing off it a little in saying that rather than end on that date, we'll start on that date. Again, I'm just pointing out why you don't normally do that: because it gives you political problems.

In this case, what was important to us was to signal to the government—not so much to anybody else, because it's inside baseball—that we're not playing silly buggers here. We're not looking to trap the government into a process where they can't get the bill out. This guaranteed that wouldn't happen, so why would we waste time in March and April not doing constructive things when we built in our own deadline?

Chair, I don't know how we could have sent a more positive signal to the government than this motion that is entirely reasonable. It looked like we were getting somewhere. It looked like there was actually some possibility of movement when the government asked if we would allow them a little time to consider it, and as the trade-off for that consideration, would we consider having the minister.... We started the process. I don't think I'm violating any confidences. People saw it on TV. Tom and I started the discussion, some of it on the floor of the House of Commons and some of it in the hallway outside the House, but we had started. We had even set out the fact that we had until this meeting to get to an agreement, if we could.

We started early. We left ourselves a lot of time. The usual respect that Mr. Lukiwski and I have for each other allowed us to have that discussion. Then, and I don't know why—I won't suggest or impugn motives—all of a sudden I was just informed that, boom, the Conservatives' own version of their iron curtain came down, and there were no more discussions. There was no more consideration of compromise. There was no more consideration of negotiations. It was over, just like that.

That's why I sit here now as much in sadness as in anger, because the real battle, if you want to call it that, the real work, the real discussion, the effort we're putting into this process, should be going into analyzing this mammoth bill that has an incredible impact on our country, on our democracy. If the government believes that they can defend all these changes, we have fair rules in our committee with a chair we respect who evenly applies the rules. We can do that, but it's not just this little committee we're talking about. It's also, how many times will this committee meet? Will those meetings be in public? How many experts will we hear from? Will we have the opportunity to call experts back after we've raised issues? We're suggesting that another reasonable component of those things I've just mentioned is to go to the places in the country where we have concerns that the biggest negative impacts will happen.

The government may win those issues when they come up. One would think that they've thought this through. Our worry is they have thought it through, but they've thought it through for themselves. Fine. Make the arguments that show we're wrong. Make the arguments that tell Canadians it's okay, that they don't need to worry, that the opposition's doing what they do, and it's okay, don't worry.

If they're successful at doing that, then they'll win the day, and people will believe that there were good changes, because at the end of the day, the government's going to get the changes they want. We get that. They have the majority. They have the power. They get to do what they want at the end of the day, but democracy happens in between, and that's the part we're standing up for.

That's why I had hoped there might be a signal from the government, today even, that they're prepared to start some negotiation. I am saying straight up again as clearly as I can that we do not want to get bogged down in a debate on process, but we are not going to let this government steamroll over the rights of the opposition to raise concerns that Canadians rightfully have. That's not going to happen.

So here we are dealing with a huge, complex, almost 250-page bill that amends one of the most complex pieces of legislation we have, which deals with our democracy and our election process, and so far, all we've seen from the government is they rammed it through the House with little or no debate. As soon as they could, they brought in closure. Prior to that, I might remind everyone, there was no proper consultation with anyone outside the Conservative world. They used the argument that it was okay to ram it through the House because once the bill got to committee, that's where the real work would happen, that it's just a kind of show in the House, and once it got to committee, that's where we would roll up our sleeves and start getting some serious work done.

All right, here we are at committee, and here's the opposition saying let's get some serious work done, let's agree on a fair process in terms of how to proceed and then let's get at it. The same government that rammed the bill through the House under the guise of saying that they want to get it to committee so there can be a thorough discussion now doesn't want to have that thorough discussion. They don't want to give Canadians an opportunity to be heard on their fundamental right of citizenship, which is the right to vote.

I will constantly be coming back, Chair, to the theme of wanting a deal. I'm an old auto worker negotiator. I like negotiating. I like the process of getting to yes, and compromising, with a little give and take. I enjoy the process, because my experience in almost 30 years at all three orders of government is that's really when we get good work done: when we can come to a compromise, especially on process.

Again, this shouldn't be the biggest fight, and it needn't be. It needn't be. What we should be doing is talking about this bill. However, in a parliamentary democracy, there are certain rights that non-government MPs have. Those rights are extended to the official opposition members and the other opposition members, but most importantly, in a democracy, they extend to the people. If the people want to come out in their communities and do nothing but sing the praises of the government at hearings in northern Canada—

[An hon. member]

In Mississauga.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

—or Mississauga, yes, so be it. We're not trying to rig, not that we have the power to do it.... We're not trying to get any kind of unfair advantage. We're not trying to trap the government. We're not trying to make some political point that's separate and apart from this. All we want is a fair, honest opportunity to look at this bill and for us to make determinations on what's in the best interests of Canadians and their democracy.

It is possible for us to put a deal together. If we were serious about this, we could do it in less than half an hour. Within half an hour of starting negotiations, if both sides were serious, we could come to a compromise. I don't see how the official opposition and the other opposition parties can conduct themselves in any other way and be more fair and more responsible than that.

If it were pure politics, we would have jumped up that motion even more. We would not have put the May 1 date in there. We would have been doing political gymnastics to make that happen. Instead, at every moment that I have an opportunity, I'm asking the government to talk with us, to negotiate with us to find an agreement, to get past this process issue, and to get on with the substance of the bill.

Chair, we do have a responsibility here as the opposition to ensure that all the components are as fair as possible. That's what Canadians expect. They like to think their majority government, in whom they've placed all their trust, would take care of their interests.

The beauty and the genius of parliamentary democracy is that the system provides an opportunity for Canadians to feel like they actually have a say in their law-making. That is one of the hallmarks of a mature modern democracy. Yet that simple little ingredient of democracy the government refuses to give; so as much as this is not where we want to be, this is where we're bloody well going to stay until the government changes its mind and gives Canadians what they deserve.

While I have this opportunity—it's not often we get to talk directly to Canadians—I will say that in a majority government, at the end of the day, the government will get their way. They have a majority. Sometimes it can take a little longer. We can slow things down. We stopped those trips from happening because we said that if it's good enough to go out on those matters with those committees and spend that time and money, then we think it's equally important for this committee to get out there. We don't have too many tools to make our case to the government to get their attention, but that's one of them, so we removed that.

Chair, you know as well as anyone that at the end of the day, the government still has the means by which they can move motions and use their majority government to get what they want. It's just going to take longer. What we refused was the sort of motherhood housekeeping issue of allowing unanimous consent once it had gone through the proper committees.

Our power—no, I won't use the word “power”—our ability to effect change when the government has set a course is somewhat limited at the end of the day. However, the nuclear weapon in a democracy is still the people. I've been around long enough to know that if enough of those government backbenchers get enough contact from enough Canadians that they're upset and that they want this to change and that they want a fair process, the backbenchers will report to that minister, who will then report to the Prime Minister, and suddenly we're going to get hearings. As much as they might want this bill, there's not one of those government members who's willing to put their seat on the line for it, especially if their constituents agree that they are not being fair.

Fair is not a powerful word, usually, but to Canadians it means a lot. We accept that there are powerful forces in society. People get to make decisions that affect us. The government has all kinds of power to take money out of your pocket and spend it any way they want. They can pass laws about what you can do and can't do, but at the end of the day, Canadians will only believe that those laws are theirs if they feel some ownership, if they feel there has been fairness.

The government even calls the bill the fair elections act, because they know the importance of the word “fair” to Canadians. They're trying to co-opt that, and I get it; we did the same thing when we were in government, and fair enough. What's not fair is to send committees all over North America, all over the world, even to study democracy....

I've used the example of the foreign affairs committee. Our vice-chair was part of the delegation that went to Ukraine. Ukraine is an important country. I've been on four international election observation missions there for presidential elections and legislative elections. I have as much vested interest in and compassion, care and support for Ukraine as anybody else in this country.

I know that Mr. Opitz is a leader in our Parliament on that, and I give him kudos for that. He does a very good job. He probably would have been one of the forces behind that initiative to have us go there, study that democracy, and issue our report.

Why did we do that? Did we do it just so a bunch of parliamentarians would have a nice little perk of a trip? No. We did it because parliamentarians were going there to study the democracy, issue a report, and then lend Canada's voice to the international discussion around democracy in Ukraine. That's why we did it, as a positive contribution to democracy on the international stage. That's something else Canadians are proud of. We don't show up with our army, and we can't always show up with our chequebook, but we always show up wanting to help.

If we're willing to do all that for Ukraine, as we should as a G-7 country rich enough to do it, why aren't we willing to do that for Canadians? Why isn't the government willing to show Canadian democracy and Canadian citizens the same respect that we collectively showed to Ukrainian democracy and Ukrainian citizens?

That's why I can only conclude that the government members have calculated that politically it is better to take the political hit and to live through these moments in which the opposition parties actually get the chance to have their say than it is to deal with what they think might happen if they leave the safety and security of the Ottawa bubble. That's why I say I think they're afraid.

This is a G-7 country whose government is afraid of its own citizens. Are the government members afraid they can't defend the changes? So, if we're in the north and we're seeing the processes that will actually be in place and we have a stark, clear vision that democracy is not being served and that this is hurting those folks who are afraid that's what's going to happen when we get out there, then what's the answer? Don't go out there. Stay here. Make it all just an esoteric argument so we're all nice and safe in here. We have security guards and we have spent millions on new security. It's all nice and safe here. We can make these kinds of oblique arguments about this, that, and the other thing.

It's very, very, very different if you're sitting up north in a community centre with the leaders of the community coming in and telling you hands-on how it is going to disenfranchise their community members. It's a lot harder for the government to say that's not true when it's right in front of them. I think they are afraid.

If they're not afraid of that, then they're afraid there might be some demonstrations. What did the government call it? A circus: that is what they thought of public hearings which Canadians come out to and especially if anybody would dare say something negative about our special little privileged government. God forbid that should happen. What do you do about that? Well, you deal with it in the same way you dealt with the other problem: you don't go there. You don't go there, because they can't get the picket signs as close here, because there are lots of rules and they're all nice and secluded and everything is all fine. They can manage that, but the idea that they might have to walk through a crowd that is not very happy outside of a committee room, oh, boo hoo. Boo hoo.

Try being Mike Harris's government when they had public hearings around their labour laws. I was there. There was the biggest circus in the world. I've seen lots of demonstrations. What I have not seen in my years is a government that runs and hides from its own people. That's the difference.

This government seems to think that if there are any demonstrations at any hearings, somehow democracy is being harmed. They have two arguments. One was, they said, that it was going to be a circus. By the way, outside the elected members, I'm not sure who they thought the clowns would be, but they called it a circus.

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

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I just want to point out to my friend David that I actually called it a gong show as well.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I was going to get to that. That was the second part.

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

Of course, that's not about the people attending the hearings who could be here today. That's just about the people you had organized to try to put on a public face of demonstration rather than hearing expert witnesses. That would be the gong show.