Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 17th, 2021

[Manon Paquet]

Clause 7 is in consequence to a change in the number of polling days. They are transitional provisions with respect to the reporting of third parties. After clause 6 comes into force and the repeal of part 22, it would allow for the transition from the three-day polling period back to a one-day polling period after Bill C-19 is no longer in effect.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Does that clarify it?

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

I'm sorry. We're doing clause 7 as a.... Is it just clause 7?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Yes. We'll be moving on to clause 8 and 9 next as they don't have any amendments to be discussed.

We'll have a recorded vote on clause 7.

(Clause 7 agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Would clause 8 have a similar fate? Are you voting in favour of clause 8, Mrs. Vecchio?

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

I'm just trying to get my brain around where I am.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Anybody from the team...? It might just save us a couple of minutes.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

It's not a problem.

Mr. Nater, do you want to respond to that?

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

Let's have a recorded vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

We will have a recorded vote on clause 8.

(Clause 8 agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)

(Clause 9 agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)

(On clause 10)

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

We're moving on to clause 10 and CPC-17.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Thank you very much.

I think this is where it all comes down to it. Will there or will there not be an election during this pandemic?

Honestly, this amendment would limit the Chief Electoral Officer's ability to accelerate the implementation of the provisions, which would be enacted by clauses 2 through 5, so as to prevent those provisions from coming into effect prior to September 20, 2021, which is the first scheduled sitting day of the House this autumn.

In other words, if the Prime Minister wants to call a summer election, he would have to do so mostly under the current rules, but if he wants to call an election under the new rules, he can wait until the House gets back. At the end of the day, we have all voted that there would not be a pandemic election.

There are four and a half days left, so when we talk about non-confidence votes—I'm sorry—we know that things will pass. We know that there is support for these things, so I think it's extraordinarily important that we get down to the bottom of this. There should not be an election during a pandemic.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

We have a very hard stop, and we have three things to do, basically, so I need your help to do it in a minute.

Can we have a vote on this?

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Madam Chair, no, not right now.

I understand, but I don't want to rush things through just to meet an arbitrary deadline. If we have questions, we need to have them asked and answered.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

We only have two more votes. What is the question?

Go ahead, Mr. Blaikie.

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

It seems to me that we're not going to get it done in this meeting, which is too bad, unless the Conservatives want to agree to votes right now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I think we will. Come on, let's go.

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

All that is to say that, if not availing himself of Bill C-19 was going to stop the Prime Minister from calling an election, I'd be very happy to support this. However, I don't think that's really factoring into his decision, unfortunately. I want to be in a position where, if there is an election called, this law can apply.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Can we carry on division, Mr. Nater? I mean “defeat”. I'm sorry.

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

My question is to the Elections Canada officials.

Does the Chief Electoral Officer have the ability to implement these changes over the summer? Would this be a moot point if these provisions can't be enacted prior to September 20 anyway? We know the CEO has discretion to implement prior to a certain deadline—I believe it's 90 days—but is this a moot point? Would these provisions be enacted? Does he have the capacity to enact these by September 20, or is this a moot point to begin with?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

It's certainly an important question, yes.

Go ahead, Mr. Roussel.

[Michel Roussel]

Thank you for your questions.

I would say first that Elections Canada is ready to deliver an election in the current context. We've made good preparation for that. That's the first thing.

Second, Bill C-19 has a lot of provisions to put in place, and we want to do things right. We want Canadians to trust the result of the next election.

I'm not in a position to make any commitments at this stage, and the Chief Electoral Officer would not want me to do that, to make any commitment to deliver things before the deadline that is found in Bill C-19, which is 90 days.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Can we have a vote on CPC-17?

Mr. Lukiwski.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

I was just about to say, Madam Chair, since we're past our deadline already, and there are probably one or two other questions, or at least pieces of clarification I'd like, I don't know if I'm comfortable forcing a vote. We have another meeting date left next Tuesday, and—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

The only one question after this is CPC-18. It is CPC-17 and CPC-18 and then we're done. We're on CPC-17 right now.

We could not have that meeting, or we could have that meeting and have committee business and all the other motions and things that I'm sure members want to discuss if we were to get it done.

Yes, Ms. Petipas Taylor.