Mr. Speaker, one of the most interesting things, which I am sure the government or anybody else would find in trying to create legislation that is going to work to solve a problem is to first discuss whether there is a problem of perception or a problem of a reality.
I happen to be a bit of a hybrid in that I come from British Columbia but I happen to be in the Alberta time zone so I speak with some authority to this issue. In fact, if we look at the reality, the reality is that with Internet, telephone communications and satellite services, those in western Canada who choose to avail themselves of information relative to voting patterns in Ontario, Atlantic Canada or Quebec can do so.
I may be admitting to some kind of a crime here, but in 1993, one hour after the polls closed in Ontario I made a telephone call from British Columbia to Ontario to find out what was going on. That does happen and it is a reality. However, the question has to be: How many people in western Canada actually do that?
There are only a selected number of us who choose to become candidates and a few more who choose to actually support the political parties. For the most part, there is no problem. As a matter of fact, according to the reports that I read in the news media on the most recent U.S. presidential election, the amount of information that was accessed on the Internet by people in the western U.S. about what was going on in the eastern U.S. was
minuscule. In other words, in actual fact this has no real basis of reality.
There is a problem of perception. The problem is that people will turn on their televisions in the Pacific time zone and the votes will have been in the process of having been counted for four and a half hours in Newfoundland and three hours in central Canada. The perception is that the election is over.
However, I agree with the Liberal whip that every Canadian's vote counts and is equal. I suggest to this House that in actual fact it does not make a bit of difference. There may be a perception in British Columbia on the part of some people, and a little disappointment, particularly as it happened in the 1993 election. We were expecting that Reform was going to break through in Ontario, as we will in this coming election, but we were expecting that in the 1993 election. Naturally there was a lot of disappointment for the people in western Canada that the people of Ontario had not quite woken up to the fact of what Reform was about. The fact is that it did not make a bit of difference.
What I do not understand is legislation that deals with perception only and in dealing with perception completely upsets the apple cart. Everyone in this House will be fully aware of the fact that between five o'clock and eight o'clock on election day, if they have anything approximating a team working for them, their people will have the information of whether their supporters have been out and have supported them. That not being the case is when the telephoning happens. It is part of the election process.
What we have done in British Columbia is to take one full hour out of the normal election process. Does this mean that the people of British Columbia will not get out and vote? I would suggest it could. It certainly will change the difference between the way in which the election is conducted by the respective parties and their organizations and the supporters of the candidates in Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces to the way in which it is conducted in Alberta and British Columbia. They will be missing the hour between seven o'clock and eight o'clock when they could be getting their voters out.
I submit to the House that this legislation deals only with perception and is problematic. It creates problems. Instead of dealing with the real problem, it creates a real problem.