Mr. Speaker, I have a few comments to make about Bill C-63, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Referendum Act.
As has been mentioned by my colleague, we are anxious to study the bill in committee, to hear witnesses and the explanations that the government and experts have on how this can help the electoral system. Obviously Canadians are receptive to some of the changes that are being proposed, at least in theory, if some of the obstacles can be overcome.
I suspect there will be much interest in the idea of a permanent voter's list. The government believes it will perhaps save $30 or $40 million a year. Canadians would like us to look at that seriously for the cost savings alone.
Another aspect is the shorter period of time. The argument goes that 47 days were necessary in the days of train travel and when it was difficult to get around to communicate in the country. Certainly the shorter electoral period is worthy of consideration. I am sure that is why the chief electoral officer has brought this forward.
As members know, a permanent voter's list will eliminate 100,000 jobs in a sense. During the enumeration process 100,000 enumerators travel the country. Enumerating is not a permanent job, but there is an understanding that those positions, while they may be eliminated in a sense, I will not be sorry to see them go.
While it is always nice to have somebody knocking on your door for the enumeration, it has been used by MPs who submit lists of people for that position. I will not be sorry to see that go. I would just as soon have it outside the political arm of all parties. To get rid of it would not be a bad thing.
There is the question of the length of time someone can advertise during the election period. Will there be enough time to arrange for advertising when it comes down to taking the blackout period from there and so on, in a 36-day campaign? It will have to happen very quickly. Again, it is not an insurmountable matter. I would think that all political parties will be willing to look at the concept of a shorter period of time, meaning fewer expenses and less advertising.
I do not think the Canadian people would get their knickers in a knot if advertising was cut back substantially. That is worthy of consideration.
There is the concern about privacy. I have spoken to the electoral officer about this. He has assured me that this idea of getting access to Revenue Canada for the names for the voter's list, access to those who have drivers' licences and so on will be safe and secure and will not lead to any loss of privacy.
Nowadays the privacy aspect is becoming more and more important. As the privacy commissioner said, right now Canadians find themselves almost inundated or overwhelmed by technological change and the fact that an address, a phone number or even a tax return given to one department is not as sacrosanct as it once was.
That is obviously something we need to make sure is kept private for the sake of those voters who might otherwise not give their names willingly to Elections Canada people. The Privacy Act is another issue, certainly something that Canadians have a lot of concerns about.
I would like to spend my last few minutes mentioning that, although this bill is entitled an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Referendum Act, it is almost a misnomer. Referendums are so seldom held in Canada that it is almost not part of the Canadian political scene. It is something that the Reform Party has proposed as one of the ways to democratize this institution and involve Canadians in the political process.
Reform has proposed electoral changes over the years that could be discussed at some time and I hope taken seriously by the House and actually adopted as policy. Some changes involve parliamentary reform. Members have heard me speak about changing the MPs oath of office so that members swear allegiance not only to the Queen but also to constituents. In other words, it would be a shift in allegiance to the people that actually elect us.
Reform proposes parliamentary reform to support the restricting and limiting of the number of order in council appointments that a party can make. We spoke on a bill yesterday that reduced the number by 200 positions. However, over 2,200 positions still are filled by order in council appointments. It is a huge opportunity for a governing party to launder its political friends through the system and get a pay back.
One of the fundamental changes that Reform has proposed and continues to propose would be good for democracy is the whole idea of referendum initiative and recall. No doubt members have seen on the news our Fresh Start campaign literature. It is not really a fresh start for Reform. This has been a longstanding demand of many people who are looking for changes in the system. The Referendum Act we are discussing today should become a legitimate tool of the Canadian people to democratize the Canadian system.
The Reform Party supports the mechanism of binding referendums on the Government of Canada by a simple majority vote of the electorate, including a simple majority and at least two-thirds
of the provinces. Canadians could actually pass laws themselves at election time where they have an opportunity to cast their ballot first for the person they are going to elect and second on the big issues of the day.
The Reform Party supports the idea of citizen's initiatives by way of referendums. If 3 per cent of the electorate were to present a petition to the chief electoral officer and it was duly recognized, authorized and went through due process, that proposal would then be put before the people in a referendum. The citizens could seize the day, seize the issue and force it through, not necessarily to win, of course, but to force it on to a ballot so they too could have a direct say in issues they consider very important.
One of the issues that comes up periodically is the idea of a referendum on capital punishment. Others involve the expansion of the free trade agreement and moral issues. People say they would like to have a say in these policies. They do not want any political party to have the final say. They have to live under the law and they would like the final say.
The Reform Party, as part of their guarantee of good government with changes under the system, is the right to have recall for members of Parliament. When MPs have violated their oath of office and have contravened the very things they swore they would uphold, citizens in that constituency should have the right, if they go to a certain amount of work, to have that member come back and stand for re-election. The way it stands now, short of murder or a serious criminal offence, there is no way a member of Parliament can lose his or her job.
We have seen all kinds of boondoggles over the years. We have seen ex-MPs being charged with accepting graft or some other odious crime.
A lot of that was known when they were office holders but there was no way for the constituents to get at that person and say: "You are not doing your job. Worst yet, you have broken your oath of office. I demand that you come back and answer to the people". If they had that opportunity, which they would have under a Reform government, they could ride herd on the members of Parliament. Members of Parliament would not have four to five years to run their own show, do their own thing and answer to no one. That would obviously be a big advantage.
In conclusion, as I am almost out of time, other proposals that we have brought forward which are not part of this bill but are Reform Party policy include support for holding elections every four years at a predetermined time of the year. Another advantage of planning for reducing expenses and making Canadians buy into the electoral process is a specific length of time, not exceeding six months, by which time byelections should be held for any vacant Commons seat. The whole issue of the funding of political parties and how they are funded by corporations, special interest groups and so on needs to be addressed as well and it is not in this bill.
While the bill is worthy of study, and we are happy to do that in committee, there is much more that could be done, should be done, must be done and will be done under a Reform government.