Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 4th, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Yes.

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

Okay. Thank you for that.

“May” has been interpreted in Parliament in several ways. Sometimes governments loathe “may”, and what they actually meant was “shall” and “must”.

There is a second concern that we have. The negotiations that I assume have happened between the government and the Conservative official opposition were primarily around what's included at the very end of Ruby's motion, that there is now a pre-election spending limit of $1.4 million.

I have an inquiry to the government as to what that means for 2019. This is pro-rated to inflation, is it not? “Adjusted to inflation” is the more correct term. It comes out to somewhere near $2 million in a pre-writ period. I'm still seeking to know what that will be in 2023 through inflationary numbers. This is not an insignificant amount of money.

I can't help but reflect—and Ruby will understand why this is interesting or ironic—that at the end of our last efforts at democratic reform, the ERRE committee made negotiations between me, the Greens, the Bloc, and the Conservatives to arrive at a report that we could agree to. The then minister of democratic reform expressed such disappointment with me that we would ever negotiate with Conservatives over anything to do with our elections. I thought that was the point, actually. I thought the point of that exercise was to try to come to some multipartisan agreement.

I have to register this. While I appreciate that there has been whatever back channel negotiations among the parties, if the process required unanimous consent, it would have been a really good idea to contact us more than five minutes before the meeting to understand what was being negotiated. It's hard for us to feel particularly respected or included if a piece of paper is dropped on our desk five minutes before the meeting.

All that being said, as my grandma used to say, a lack of planning on my part didn't make for a crisis on hers. However, here we are, having blown through the Chief Electoral Officer's deadlines on making some reforms. He's told us that he can't do a bunch of things in Bill C-76 because so much time has been lost that it's not going to happen for the next election. There are some really good things actually, if we were to pass them as a committee. That is unfortunate, and that was unnecessary, in my mind.

It seems that the Liberals are okay with increasing the spending limits. Chair, I question that as a principle in terms of the fairness of the election. Parties that have more will do more and be able to influence more.

There is a cap, which is appreciated, but it's a significant cap. To most Canadians, $2 million is a lot of money. To most third party civil society groups, $2 million is an unimaginable amount of money to spend in an election period. They'll never attain that kind of influence.

However, we prefer and favour parties all the time in our legislation, as you know, Chair, over the voices of others. Parties are protected.

The last thing I'll say, and I'll wrap up, is that I hope this is seen—if we support this—as good faith towards some of the amendments we have, around some of the other important things we've heard evidence on from our Chief Electoral Officer, the Privacy Commissioner, and others, about making our elections truly fair. We've tried to only put forward amendments that were based on evidence, and particularly around things like privacy and the intervention of social media.

I don't know if folks are following Cambridge Analytica and what the ethics committee is looking at right now. There was a report on the CBC this morning, on The Current, with a member of that committee. It is incredibly disturbing, and we are incredibly unprepared.

Our British colleagues were unprepared for having a free and fair vote on their Brexit decision, where a Canadian company was receiving what I think were illegal funds to then influence British voters.

We have fewer protections than the British do as the law sits right now. Some of our amendments are attempting to fix those holes, plug those holes, so that our elections, our referenda, are fought fairly, and not with outside money from foreign governments and foreign interference.

All that said, there's a bit of nose holding on this, to see this thing through. But in the larger effort of fixing the damage that was done in the previous Parliament to our ability to vote freely in this country, we're prepared to vote for this. That's with the understanding of some good faith intention as we move forward with further clause-by-clause consideration and the amendments we've brought forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Are there any other speakers to the motion?

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

I have a question for Mr. Cullen.

You made reference to having proposals. Is that a reference to the amendments that the New Democrats have put in?

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

Yes, particularly the amendments around responsibilities in social media and advertising, as well as toward Canadians' privacy and the information that parties collect—not on their behalf, but on our behalf.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Right, I've got it. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

We will go to the vote.

(Motion agreed to)

I'd just like to do a couple of things before we adjourn.

One is just a technical point. When I listed the amendments last time I gave you the number of the amendments. There have been a few more Conservative amendments since those numbers. They're in your package and you have them.

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

Do you know the total number?

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

Let the record show a large intake of breath.

[Philippe Méla, Legislative Clerk]

I was going to say plus 15, but I would say around 340 or so.

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

There are 340 amendments.

[Philippe Méla]

Yes, 340.

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

That's the total.

[Philippe Méla]

Yes, more or less.

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

When we return, the work for the committee is to consider 340 amendments in some four or five sitting days, plus the clauses themselves—346 pages of clauses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Simms.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

For the amendments that are considered to be redundant and are being grouped together for one particular vote—not to mention those that may be out of the scope of the principle of the bill—have they been decided yet, or are we still in the process of that?

[Philippe Méla]

We are still in the process of doing it.

They are quite technical. It is complicated to analyze, so we are looking at that. We usually look at how the vote is going to affect one versus the other, the line conflict and so on. If there are some that need to be grouped together because they are linked together, we usually do that.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Okay, but didn't you do this in stages, where you started back when you got the first amendments? Do you have to do it all at once?

[Philippe Méla]

Right.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Everyone knows this is the legislative clerk for this?

[An hon. member]

A genius.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Reid.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

I don't think it would be reasonable for any of us to make unreasonable requests, but I will just ask this question. The earlier we get the package to look at, the greater the chance is we'll be able to figure ways, chatting informally, of determining which items are more likely to require a lengthier discussion and which ones can be passed through quickly.

Do you have any kind of estimated time on when you'd be able to get back to us?