Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Nov. 17th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you, Minister LeBlanc.

I want to inform the committee about the phone lines. There's still some difficulty with volume on the phone lines, if you're hearing from your staff. The technical team has been working hard to try to resolve the problem. They're trying to figure out where the problem lies within the phone lines. It's been suggested that there's another way to resolve it, which I guess would involve shutting down the whole meeting for 20 minutes and doing a reboot. I don't think that's ideal. We would lose a lot of time, and nothing guarantees that it would be only 20 minutes.

In the meantime, they will continue to work on the line. If it's not possible, then they'll inform us again. Perhaps you could let your staff know that they should also tune in to ParlVU. I know there is a delay through ParlVU, but I think in the meantime it might be helpful.

We will continue with Mr. Blaikie for six minutes.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I want to start by thanking the minister for his comments about the importance of democracy and by acknowledging his words to the effect that we can always do more to strengthen our democracy and make it better and work better for Canadians.

Of course, I know the minister will recall that in the last Parliament we had quite an extended conversation as a Parliament about how to improve Canada's democracy by looking at the way Canadians vote. This was through the special committee on electoral reform, the structure of which was put forward by the NDP in Parliament. We were very happy to see it proceed, although we weren't very happy about the outcome in the sense that we really did feel that the committee had managed, despite many challenges, to put a path forward. We shared the disappointment of many Canadians when the government chose not to move forward on that. We did note with interest, however, that the Liberals on the committee had filed a report saying that we should have more consultation with Canadians on how we vote and how we can improve our democracy in that way.

Many people in civil society, including Fair Vote, a well-established organization that advocates for voting reform, have proposed that we have a citizens' assembly at the federal level. Given that partisans within Parliament weren't able to agree on a system, perhaps we could break the logjam by leaving it to Canadian citizens to get together, get the best information on the various voting systems, and then make a concrete proposal on how Canada moves ahead.

It's in that spirit that our leader, Jagmeet Singh, sent a letter to the Prime Minister on November 4 asking for his support for the initiative of establishing just such a citizens' assembly. In that spirit, I want to give notice of the following motion at the procedure and House affairs committee today:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(a)(vi), the committee undertake a study on the advisability of establishing a National Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform to make recommendations about how to improve Canada’s electoral system, including the question of how Canadians elect Members of Parliament and how the make up of Parliament reflects the votes cast by Canadians; that the committee’s study shall include an examination of: (a) the terms of reference for such an assembly; (b) the composition of such an assembly; (c) a timeline for the completion of such an assembly’s work; (d) public reporting requirements for such an assembly; (e) the resources required to support the work of such an assembly, including measures to ensure comprehensive and effective citizen engagement throughout the process; (f) any other matters the committee deems pertinent to voting reform; that the committee report back to the House no later than May 3, 2021, and; that the committee’s report either (I) recommend not to proceed with such an assembly or (II) recommend to proceed with such an assembly and include a detailed plan for how to proceed that provides for the issues raised in items (a)-(f).

I wanted to give that notice while you were here, Minister, in order to be able to benefit from your thoughts on how we might move forward with such an assembly or how we might make good on the Liberal Party's own suggestion from the last Parliament that we continue to consult Canadians about the way we vote. If not a citizens' assembly, then what would that be? I note there are no resources set aside here in the estimates for that kind of consultation. When might we hope also to see some financial resources dedicated to that consultation?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

On a point of order, Mr. Blaikie admitted in his remarks there is no money in these particular estimates for this, so I would respectfully suggest this is outside the scope of what we're discussing today.

I'm sure the minister is very capable of answering this question, and he's probably chomping on the bit to get into it.

I think that it's important that we stick to the issue today: the main estimates and questions related to those. Mr. Blaikie said himself that there is no money for this in the main estimates, so the fact that he brought this up seems to me to be out of order, but I'll let you decide.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

On that same point of order, Madam Chair, if I may just respond to the Liberals—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Yes. I paused your time, Mr. Blaikie, a little while back. I was going to tell you that I was going to give you time to put this motion on notice at the end of the meeting. Maybe I should have stated that at the beginning, but I wanted to see how the meeting went and how much time we would have.

It isn't within the scope of the estimates right now, but it is a fair point. I sat on the electoral reform committee, which travelled the country studying this important issue, with your colleague Mr. Cullen. We had a very good time hearing from Canadians about this very issue.

As to whether it's relevant, you can make the statement that you wish, Mr. Blaikie, and perhaps we could see if MInister LeBlanc would be willing to share any of his ideas on the issue.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

It's important to note that experienced parliamentarians, including the minister, will know that decisions and conversations about the estimates are as much about what is not in them as they are about what is in them.

I have participated in many question-and-answer sessions with ministers about their estimates where we discussed decisions not to fund certain priorities, so I think it is legitimate to ask why there aren't resources for continuing to consult or for starting a meaningful consultation with Canadians about what our voting system is.

When we talk about responsible government, and governments having answers for their spending decisions, they have to answer just as much for what they aren't spending on as for what they are spending on.

I would say to Mr. Gerretsen that he might feel more passionate for my side of the issue were he on the opposition benches questioning a Conservative government. Here in Manitoba, we have a Conservative government that is not spending the money that it should on the pandemic. I'm sure Mr. Gerretsen is not implying that members of the Manitoba government shouldn't be able to challenge the government about pandemic spending that it is not doing simply because the government hasn't made a proposal to spend money that it's not going to spend.

We have to be able to talk about spending in general. Particularly as we are also discussing the main estimates, not just the supplementary estimates, it's a fair point to ask why funding for this initiative isn't there. That is my defence for why I think this is quite relevant.

I'll just end by saying I very much look forward to the minister's answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Minister, would you like to share your comments and feedback on that issue?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Of course, Madam Chair.

Thank you for the opportunity and thank you, Mr. Blaikie, for raising obviously a critical issue: the idea of consulting Canadians on ways to improve our democracy and ways to improve the participation of Canadians. It's something we should be constantly focused on.

I can imagine the context of COVID presents, in and of itself, something that we need to be very aware of.

I don't propose, Madam Chair, to have a view on the agenda of your committee and how you choose to organize your meetings. Your committee properly has the mandate to look at issues around elections, the Canada Elections Act and voting, and I would certainly see that as a very appropriate forum to begin this conversation should your committee take up Mr. Blaikie's motion.

Obviously, as the minister responsible for Elections Canada, but with the help of Privy Council officials, I would be happy to provide any information we might have that would be useful should your committee decide to take up that issue. In terms of what might be in future spending estimates, we'll let the Minister of Finance and the President of the Treasury Board work on those.

I want to conclude, Madam Chair, by saluting Mr. Blaikie's service in Parliament. Daniel, I was a fan of your father's service as a long-standing member of Parliament. There is a small group of us: you would be in the group, and I might be. The Prime Minister himself is. Geoff Regan is. We are lucky enough to serve in an institution where our parents served. I remember fondly your father's service, and it is particularly a pleasure for me to see you at the committee this morning. I haven't had a chance to see you in the House of Commons, because we don't tend to cross over the aisle and talk to colleagues in a cheerful way as we might do if we sat near one another at a desk, but it is a privilege for me to see you here this morning and also to see you serving in the House of Commons.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you very much. I look forward to continuing to work with you and hopefully working towards establishing a citizens' assembly at the federal level for voting reform.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Madam Chair, I would just point out that I neglected to mention that the Acadian people in New Brunswick have a number of institutions that have grown over the decades going back hundreds of years that all properly started with citizens' assemblies. That's how we adopted the Acadian flag. That's how the Société Nationale de l'Acadie was born. There are great examples where the Acadian populations from Atlantic provinces and Quebec have used citizens' assemblies to push forward not only our rights, but issues important to Acadians. I'm particularly sensitive to that forum.

Thank you, Mr. Blaikie.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Next, for five minutes, we have Mr. Tochor.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Thank you very much, and thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

We're talking about fathers and their different roles. My father was a plumber. I'll actually ask my questions the way he would ask about this spend.

If you're looking at spending additional dollars or repeating additional investments on a worthwhile and, I think, well-intended project, you'd ask what was spent before.

Mr. Sutherland, how many taxpayers' dollars were spent on the debates in 2015?

[Allen Sutherland]

At the time those debates were held privately, so zero public dollars were spent.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

We had zero taxpayer dollars spent in 2015. In 2019 we had $4.6 million of taxpayers' dollars spent on something that the private sector was delivering.

Mr. LeBlanc, what would you say to the taxpayer in your riding who had to earn that dollar and pay half of that or upwards of half of that to the government to spend on this during a pandemic? Would they say that's money well spent?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

I believe they would because I believe that Canadians know that there's a—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

If you could just pause for a minute. Your sound is not very good.

I've paused your time, Mr. Tochor, but I'd like for you to be able to get the response.

We can hear you now. Please continue.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

As I was saying, my belief is that Canadians know that there's a cost to having a free, open and fair democracy, and to have elections conducted with the highest level of integrity in the fairest and most accessible way possible.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Was 2015 not a fair election?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

I certainly liked the result of the 2015 election. I don't have to hide from you that I thought the result of that election was outstanding, but I did have a high level of discomfort as that election went on.

Mr. Harper originally called a 79-day election. I remember because it started in August and finished after Thanksgiving in October. Mr. Harper announced that he was not going to participate in what had been known as the consortium debate. Instead, Mr. Harper sort of cherry-picked a series of venues and debates that had limited access—whether it was a university campus or a network that perhaps was not accessible across the country or not accessible in both official languages—and there ended up being a hodgepodge of debates.

Clearly, I think the Prime Minister excelled in those debates. I was obviously proud of the way our leader did in those debates. The results speak for themselves, but there was a certain incoherence when the election began because Mr. Harper started by vandalizing what had been a long-standing tradition of these consortium-led debates.

The debates commission was our way to try to restore at least a basic platform that is fair and accessible across the country in both official languages in a reliable way. Leaders, of course, are free to pick and choose other debates they may wish to attend.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

This is my time, Minister.

Let's go back to the cost. You're of the belief that $4.6 million of taxpayers' money is better spent on holding a debate that could be held privately rather than on health care during a pandemic. I just want to be clear on that.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

No, of course not. You're—

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Why are we spending $4.6 million on this?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

I think you should acknowledge that our government is spending a great deal on health preparedness in the—

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Too much.