Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Nov. 7th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

There is not a lot of time remaining. If we want an answer, we have to give the floor to the minister.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Yes, but I have to finish the question if I want a specific answer. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

I understand, but it is one or the other.

Minister, we are listening to you.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I fully share your concerns about locations. We added two days of advance polls. Community centres and municipal spaces will necessarily be rented for longer periods of time. You are correct about that, Mrs. Gill.

I once again note your wish to have an election right now. I noted your leader’s comments. You are working to make sure we don’t get to the fixed-date election in October next year.

Regardless of the fixed date set by the law, there will necessarily be these kinds of tensions. You are right to say it is not ideal. Whether it is a religious celebration, a municipal election or a provincial election, we do our best and people adapt.

What is positive is that there’s a great deal of resiliency among voters.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much, Mrs. Gill.

Ms. Barron, the floor is yours for six minutes, please.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Minister.

Minister, as I'm sure you've seen here, and in many other meetings, we know that facts just don't seem to matter to our Conservative colleagues, which is really upsetting to see.

They are very good at making clips, though, and I want to acknowledge that often those clips are posted before we even leave the meeting, so I will give them credit for being exceptional clippers. My colleagues are agreeing that they are very good at clipping, so that's good.

Mr. Chair, my question to the minister today is around the election date. At a risk of repeating myself, as soon as the implications to MPs' pensions was brought to my attention, and to the attention of my NDP colleagues, I was immediately up in the House of Commons proposing a solution to remove the clause that would make that come into effect.

My colleagues, on the other hand, stood up to try to have the entire bill completely delayed, and not put into place, because they didn't want to see improvements to our elections process. They want to keep it exactly the way it is, because it benefits them.

My question to you, Minister, is in regard to an amendment put forward on June 18 by my colleague, MP Mathyssen, to remove the clause that would put this unintended benefit—at least I would assume it would be an unintended benefit—to MPs' pensions.

Would you be in support of that amendment to see that portion removed?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

I won't be voting at this committee, when you do your clause-by-clause work. You can speak to my Liberal colleagues to see how they will vote. I have said that, as a representative of the government, if the committee decides to change that date, return the date seven days earlier, that's entirely up to the committee.

The pension consideration was not the consideration in the numerous so-called secret discussions that I would have had with your former colleague, Daniel Blaikie, who stood with me, when we announced this bill, including the date. I would just draw your attention to that.

However, the controversy is such that if people want to change the date, that's fine. I totally agree with you, Ms. Barron, that the Conservatives use that...Again, I was fisheries minister. There's an expression in English, “red herring”. The Conservatives use that as an excuse to ensure that some of the things that the NDP caucus and our government worked on to make voting more accessible....

Do you think the Conservatives, Ms. Barron, want to have campus voting? Of course they don't. Do you think they want to ensure that mail-in ballots are more accessible? No. Everything they have done, when Mr. Poilievre had my job at Democratic Institutions, was to make voting more difficult.

You're right, they'll contourner. They'll frame the argument around a date to distract from what I think—and I don't know if you agree with me—is a desire to ensure that we don't strengthen the elections regime to resist foreign interference, as recommended by the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, or deal with some of those accessibility issues that all parliamentarians should be interested in.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

I agree with a lot of what was said. I believe it is vitally important for us to be sitting around this table, and talking about how to strengthen our elections. I'm happy we are discussing this bill today.

There are some concerns that have been brought forward that I wanted to ask about. When we had representatives from the CLC and PSAC here, they were nervous that the existing legislation was too broad, and that it didn't specify the right for unions to be able to communicate freely with their members.

Do you share that concern? Do you see any concerns with us making any amendments to this bill to ensure those rights are protected?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Again, I certainly wouldn't purport to offer advice to a standing committee of the House that hasn't begun its clause-by-clause on what amendments, in the judgment of the committee, would be appropriate to pass, but I do share your concern.

Maybe Mr. Sutherland has more technical experience than I would have in terms of the origin of this particular measure, but these particular elements of the bill were specifically to ensure that unions or other third parties—we're focusing on unions, but other third parties—that can participate in communications with their members in an election have obligations under the act to register. I think it's important that there be transparency in terms of what unions would be doing in terms of third party spending—advertising—and in terms of communicating with their members.

I think the concern was around not having a foreign actor use a particular union or other third party participant in the election as a front to inappropriately or illegally interfere in the Canadian election.

There's a long history of unions participating in the democratic process, which is something we support. We would certainly share the concern that you have expressed and that union leaders would express around not inadvertently restricting what is a long-standing practice of unions being able to participate in the election.

However, it has to be done in a transparent way, so that foreign money wouldn't flow to a union or.... It's not one of the big unions that you mentioned, which might have been at this table. They're long-standing, reputable organizations that have existed for a long time. I think the concern may be around a smaller group that would suddenly.... We've seen it with respect to the earlier conversation around some Russian influence.

One has to be careful to ensure there's transparency and rigour, but in no way would we seek to limit what has been a historical right for them to participate in an electoral process—unions or other third parties—and we think that's a good thing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you.

Mr. Cooper, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, with respect to the clause in the bill that pushes back the date of the next federal election, you have stated that the reason for that was to avoid a conflict with a holiday. You've said that before. You said it at committee. However, the date that was selected conflicts with the territorial election in Nunavut. The Chief Electoral Officer came before this committee and indicated that this would significantly strain electoral resources in Nunavut.

You talked about the holiday being important. I agree, it is important. I agree the Alberta municipal elections are important. Do you not think the territorial election in Nunavut is also important?

Why is it that of all the dates that were chosen, you chose that specific date?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

This identifies, again, something that I said is an ongoing challenge with a fixed election date.

I hope that Mr. Cooper, in the House of Commons, in any of his questions, hasn't been using the silly phrase about time being up.

Mr. Cooper, you would, of course, want to have an election right now, so you shouldn't be worried about a fixed election date next October, but I'm glad you're turning your attention to that.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Minister, in solving this problem, you've created another problem in terms of a date that conflicts with a territorial election, which will have an adverse impact on the territory in terms of conducting two elections on the same date.

It does solve one problem. It's not a problem that Canadians have, but it's a problem that NDP-Liberal politicians have, which is that soon-to-be-defeated NDP and Liberal MPs, who would not qualify for their pensions, will suddenly collect their pensions. They're going to pad their pockets. That's what the effect of it would be. It's to pad the pockets of soon-to-be-defeated NDP and Liberal MPs.

The fact that you profess ignorance of that fact is only because you've been caught. The fact that you're willing to back down is because you've been caught. Canadians have realized that this is exactly what you did or tried to do.

I'm going to put the question to you once again. It's a question you refused to answer when Mr. Duncan asked you.

Whose idea was it to pad your pockets? Was it your idea or was it the leader of the NDP's idea?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Congratulations, Mr. Cooper, on your clip. I hope you can get it up before the end of the meeting.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Just answer the question.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

In the premise of your question, again, you had a series of....

I find it very arrogant, Mr. Chair, that one would say “soon-to-be-defeated” MPs. I wouldn't purport to decide how the voters in St. Albert—Edmonton will deal with Mr. Cooper in the next election. There's a certain arrogance, I think, from the Conservatives to say that...first of all, their members who would have, in their obsession with the pension focus, have benefited also. The idea that none of them might risk being defeated is the supreme arrogance that I find—

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Minister, answer the question: Whose idea was it? Was it your idea? Was it the leader of the NDP's idea? I've asked you a very straightforward question. Answer the question.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Mr. Chair, we explained when we introduced the bill that we had worked on this bill with the NDP caucus, in this case with Mr. Blaikie, with respect to an agreement that Mr. Singh and the Prime Minister made. We have noticed the manufactured indignation from the Conservatives around this issue—I agree with Ms. Barron—to perhaps prevent them from dealing with what we think are substantive and positive issues in this—

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

When you had your behind-closed-doors secret meeting with the NDP, we see in response that Al Sutherland attended that meeting, but who in the PMO sat in on that meeting with officials in the NDP?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Again, Mr. Chair, it was such a secret meeting, at a great pizza place on Metcalfe, that we posted it on Twitter, but—

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

I'm referring to the meeting on January 25, where the Chief Electoral Officer, among others, met with officials in the NDP. The question we had asked was this: Who in the PMO, who in your office, was at that meeting—if anyone?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

There are 15 seconds left.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Again, Mr. Sutherland addressed that. He was at that meeting. By recollection, I think the meeting took place in my office in the Confederation Building. Nobody from the Prime Minister's Office was in that meeting. I certainly don't have a recollection of that.

I was working with a parliamentarian from another caucus who shared our objective in preparing this legislation. We were lucky to benefit from the non-partisan advice of both senior public servants and Elections Canada. There's no mystery. The Conservatives find it shocking that people would work together to try to improve our electoral system. I don't think Canadians find it shocking that parliamentarians would work together to strengthen our democracy as opposed to try to vandalize it like Mr. Cooper would do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much, Minister.

Ms. Romanado, you have five minutes.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the minister for joining us today.

I just want to bring up one thing.

Minister, the next municipal elections in Quebec are scheduled for Sunday, November 2, 2025.

My colleague, Ms. Gill, quoted from the letter received from the Union des municipalités du Québec. I'll read you an excerpt from that letter: “We propose to set this date for December 1, 2025. This would considerably reduce the period of overlap to 8‑22 days, depending on when the federal election is called.”

Even the Union des municipalités du Québec has called for the municipal elections to be moved to December 1, so later than planned.

What I wanted to talk about, Mr. Minister, is that—