Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 17th, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Good afternoon, everyone.

I'd like to welcome Mr. Alexandre Boulerice, Ms. Shanahan and Mr. Fragiskatos.

Welcome to the 126th meeting of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. We're continuing with clause-by-clause consideration of C-76, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other Acts and to make certain consequential amendments.

Once again, we are pleased to be joined by Jean-François Morin and Manon Paquet from the Privy Council Office, and Trevor Knight and Robert Sampson—ah, he's new—from Elections Canada. Thank you all for being here.

I'll go to Mr. Nater in a minute, but I just want to do a couple of things first.

First of all, I hope people will be judicious in following the five-minute rule, roughly, so that we can make good progress today, so that we don't have to stay late today or on the weekend.

I also want to go back really quickly. I know it's hard to believe with 200 clauses, but we actually missed clause 71. There were no amendments, so I would just like to ask for unanimous approval of clause 71.

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

Oh, I see how it is.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

What?

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

Is this how we're affecting our democracy? We're just going to make it up as we go along and go back in time?

Do you want to filibuster that, John?

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

The five minutes is up.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

(Clause 71 agreed to)

Now we'll go to Mr. Nater.

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

Chair, based on the decisions we made yesterday on the clauses and amendment we approved, the Conservatives will be withdrawing some amendments.

The first one is 9964902 and that relates to clause 234.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Can you say that number again?

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

Yes. The first two are ones that were table dropped. The first number is 9964902 and that relates to clause 234.

The second one is 9965053 and that relates to clause 235.

We'll be withdrawing CPC-146, CPC-147, CPC-149, CPC-150, CPC-154, CPC-161 and CPC-169.

Also, Chair, I was wondering—

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Are there any more?

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

Nope.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Oh, I was hoping....

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

Those are it for now, but we'll see after the next set of amendments.

On that subject, perhaps at one point, Chair, we could get an update on what's been adopted so far in terms of amendments from all parties. It doesn't have to be right now. Perhaps after the lunch break or something, the clerk or someone could provide us with an update for our records of what's been adopted and what hasn't.

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

Do you want the percentages?

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

No, we don't need stats, just which ones were adopted and which ones weren't.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

He can give you a list. He has photocopies. We'll get it to you.

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

That's fine.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

I also welcome Ms. May.

Just so you know, before we start, tentatively, tomorrow we'll meet from 9:00 until 1:00 and from 3:30 to 7:00. Do you remember that when we first discussed this we talked about the evening being a 7:00 to 9:00 type of framework? We're doing 7:00 right now. Just so you know when we get around to planning our committee, next Thursday is Wednesday hours. It goes into our time because of the visit of the Prime Minister of the Netherlands. If we adjust our schedule for next Thursday, you'll know why.

When we left off, we had just finished clause 223.

We'll go to clause 224.

(On clause 224)

We have amendment CPC-98, and there are some ramifications. The vote on this amendment applies to CPC-101, which is on page 184, CPC-103, which is on page 189, CPC-105, which is on page 191, CPC-106, which is on page 192, and CPC-107, which is on page 200. They are linked by the concept of surveys conducted in preparation for an election.

Would the Conservatives introduce amendment CPC-98, please.

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

Chair, we discussed something similar with a similar amendment yesterday. This one links directly to third parties and to the actual writ period, so the election period itself and not the pre-writ period in this case. It's including the cost of a survey that's done immediately prior to the writ period for the purposes of the activities during the writ period, as an expense within the writ period for third parties. We did have a discussion similar to this yesterday, and there was some good debate, but we're bringing forward this amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

For anyone who's new here today, as a general philosophy, when there's a concept that's been studied and we had a long discussion on it before, we're trying not to have the same discussion every time it comes up. We can then go quickly on similar amendments.

Mr. Cullen.

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

Just so I understand it clearly, is this about a poll that is conducted with the intention of dropping it in the election?

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

Using it during the election.

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

Of using it during the election period?