Evidence of meeting #17 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A video is available from Parliament.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joe Preston
I'd like to watch that show for a little while, if you'd like to do that?
12:15 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
How much more could people take?
No, it does bring us right back to the core issue, which is once again is the government going to allow Canadians to have their say or not?
I was going to mention earlier, and this is probably my best chance to do it, that we're always assuming here, at least the government is, that everything could be done here from Ottawa. All we have to do is Skype people in and electronics will do everything. Yet one of the dilemmas we have is that access to the voting system is not available to everyone in the same way. This idea to just go over to your local video conferencing centre and you can hook up with the committee, or just go ahead and use your Skype application and you'll be fine, that just underscores how little the government is willing to think about Canadians who don't live in those kinds of places like downtown Ottawa.
Some of the first nations reserves—I don't know how often government members go there, I'm assuming they do—you only have to go there once, like these other places I mention, and you realize that things are done differently for cultural reasons, geographical reasons, historical reasons, and all kinds of reasons.
But a Skype presentation, should we have one, from one person is not going to reflect the challenges, not in a way that this committee could truly understand, embrace, and then interpret the new changes to the election laws to determine whether that helps or hinders those Canadians from voting.
The government contends for the most part, tough. Tough luck. Too bad. They're just going to stay right here. They're going to stay right here hiding in plain sight and afraid to go out and listen to Canadians tell them what they think about their bill.
There's a lot of focus on vouching and other issues, Mr. Chair, and I know that this is not the time for those debates. I respect that. I think it is fair, however, to at least mention the fact that vouching affects people differently depending on where they live. Those 120,000 Canadians who have been identified as using the vouching system are worried that they're at risk of losing their franchise.
How many struggles have we had in this country over the decades for the right to vote? Going way back—and not being a learned person myself and being in the presence of Mr. Reid who is, I watch for him to see if I am stepping into grounds that are making me look foolish—it started with nobility getting a vote, and as parliamentary democracy took hold then moved on to landowners. Eventually the struggle was passed and ordinary men got the vote. Then it took how many more decades of fighting and struggling before women were allowed the vote?
I think, Mr. Reid—and I defer to you, sir—that aboriginal women would be among—
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
12:20 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
It was metaphorical and I only know that word because he just said it. I'm not trying to claim to be anything I'm not here.
February 25th, 2014 / 12:20 p.m.
Conservative
12:20 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
No, I'm not at all. I'm just warming up, just warming up. I hope to go on for many more hours over many meetings.
And so the struggle was for that vote. I was making the reference—not to get Mr. Lukiwski's heart all aflutter—and suggesting that Mr. Reid would know better than I, but I believe one of the last groups of Canadians would be aboriginal women. That wasn't until.... It was within the lifetime of our parents.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
Are you talking about getting the vote?
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
That's a status issue that was resolved recently.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Scott Reid Conservative Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON
But you're right that aboriginal people were denied the vote, as were a number of racial minorities, especially in the provinces, until quite recently.
12:20 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you, I appreciate that. And thank you, Chair, for the latitude in letting him....
12:20 p.m.
An hon. member
Hear, hear!
12:20 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
What I'm pointing to, Chair, is that this struggle is not just about this one isolated thing. This is about the struggle of democracy.
I grant you we are not Ukraine, but nothing at all is etched in the physics of the universe that says Canada remains a democracy forever. Nothing guarantees that, except the will of the Canadian people to hang on to their democracy and not let go. That's what keeps democracy alive in Canada, and that's what we're talking about here. The struggle continues.
Now we're at the stage, here we are in the second decade of the new millennium, and we're still fighting for people to get their right to vote. And we know where a lot of the 120,000 people live who are affected by vouching. We know where they're affected. Why are we not going there and saying that we understand there are problems? We understand they have some problems. Here are the suggestions that are being made. What do they think?
I guarantee, Chair, the views of the changes to this law are very different, depending on where you live, what your circumstances are, and how much money you have. That's scary. That's why we're getting this reaction, as people become aware that this might not just be politics as usual, there may be something going on here that they should be paying attention to. As they're paying attention to it, without even concluding they're in favour or opposed, because Canadians are fair-minded people, their starting point is, could they have a say?
That request is not that far from Ukraine burning because that's what they want right now. They want peace, they want democracy, and they want their say. When your government, your own government, directs the armed forces to point weapons and fire live rounds and kill your own citizens there's not much doubt that's a democracy in crisis. But when we look at the history of democracy and what it really means to ordinary working stiffs, ordinary people, just plain Canadians, and the struggle for democracy, and we look at sitting here today with a major reform of our election laws, the foundation of our democracy, and people can't get a say in the places where they live and we're supposed to be the ultimate goal of countries like Ukraine and others? It's serious. It's serious because we're talking about 120,000 people who may lose their right to vote. Somehow that doesn't seem to be a big deal to the government. Hmm, you know, 35 million, a few voters give or take. Like, really?
All these struggles over history for the right to vote. Look what our friends to the south have gone through to try to give all their citizens just the right to vote. That certainly doesn't guarantee you a perfect democracy because we're not perfect, far from it. The UN has pointed out on enough occasions when we've been criticized for the way we treat the first nations people of this country. So we are far from perfect. Democracy doesn't guarantee you anything except that you're safe and secure and you get a say.
And that's what this is about. Give Canadians their say. Don't just sit in here and hide in plain sight.
We have lots of time. So if it's not the money—because we've already talked about how much money we have spent as a country studying democracy around the world and our willingness to spend money to study democracy right here in Canada. It's not the money, so it must be that they don't want to face the Canadian people. Otherwise I would expect somebody will use this perfect opportunity that I'm giving them. I'm laying it right in front of them. I'm making it so easy my leader is going to be patting me on the shoulder saying, “What are you doing?” This is how easy it is.
These are the kinds of concerns I read from Mr. Shedletzky. This is exactly the kind of input that Canadians want to have. And I defy and challenge the government to suggest that this is somehow part of a circus or a gong show, which is the way the government describes the idea of taking democracy out on the road. Democracy is only theirs, it seems. They get lots of democracy. It's just the people who don't get any.
Hmm, speaking of Ukraine....
So you want to make your gong show comments and your circus comments, “have at 'er”. There you go. You tell Adam, you explain to Adam how this is all just for the purpose—
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Tom Lukiwski Conservative Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK
I was wondering if you were inviting me to speak on that.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
