Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to speak to the report stage amendments on Bill C-63. In doing so I would first like to summarize our position as a party on this bill because we are not having a full second reading debate, having sent the bill to committee before second reading.
Under this new process we only have a brief debate and then we come back here with a debate which combines second reading and report stage. At third reading I will have a chance to fully elaborate upon our position. I would like to comment on this process. I share many of the concerns of the hon. member for Bellechasse. I also am concerned about this process.
This process does not really allow us to fully debate legislation. We have used this new process of sending bills to committee before second reading several times. I am not sure that the opposition parties generally have found it to be satisfactory. Many of my colleagues have mentioned this to me. As a result of this new process, we never really have a full debate in principle on legislation.
In this case the bill had only a cursory debate and then was sent to committee. The purpose of sending a bill to committee before second reading is to examine a broad range of issues which are not necessarily related to the principle or contents of the bill. After all, prior to second reading the bill has not received approval in principle. That is supposed to be the concept. Of course it depends on the chairman's style, but my observation has been that we very much conduct those committees the same as we would if they were held after second reading. In other words we tend to restrict debate to the items raised in the bill.
I know for example with respect to this particular piece of legislation, some of my colleagues raised issues which were not included in the legislation. The hon. member for Bellechasse raised the issues of third party advertising and of some regulations of Quebec's electoral law. Our party raised the concept of fixed election dates. We also raised the whole concept of how this elections bill would apply to byelections.
In all cases, while we had a brief discussion, the committee basically said that these things were outside the scope and the principle of the legislation. Of course they were. The legislation had not received approval in principle. Nevertheless, we worked on the assumption that it had. That was constantly the attitude of the government.
Certainly there were things which went well beyond the subject matter, but most of the things raised were clearly within the subject matter. In the case of byelections, while not directly related to the amendments in the bill, they are actually affected by the subject matter of the legislation. These things should have been debated more thoroughly than is allowed under this process.
Another example is that we wanted to debate at some length the rationale for a 36 day campaign as opposed to 37 or 39 days. We had only the briefest of discussions on that issue and once again the attitude was that this was not the principle of the bill and we were proceeding as if the bill had been approved in principle.
I think that the process of sending bills to committees early in many cases simply allows the government to accelerate the timetable of debate rather than giving the bill a more thorough examination. That was the opposite of the intention.
I would make just a brief comment on our overall position on Bill C-63. We are going to oppose the legislation. I must be frank in saying that we are disappointed that we feel we have to do so. There are three major initiatives in the bill: the reduction of the electoral period, the creation of a permanent register and the initiative to stagger voting hours. All of these have some degree of merit, particularly the permanent register, which not only has merit but is critical.
We were unable to come to any kind of inter-party agreement on these. I think we could have if we had not been operating on an accelerated timetable. Many of the things that were discussed would have resulted in improved legislation.
I cannot speak for other parties, but on behalf of the Reform Party I can say that with a few changes we could have supported this legislation. The changes are not minor but they do not affect the principle of the legislation either. That troubles me a great deal. Maybe we will have some time to speak a little later in the debate about the process. I see my time is winding down. I would like to address the report stage amendments in the second group.
Group No. 2 includes 15 amendments, 5 moved by the Bloc Quebecois and 10 moved by the Reform Party. The five from the Bloc Quebecois concern making the date of birth a mandatory piece of information for inclusion on the register and the motions by the Reform Party remove gender as required information for the register.
I must say in all honesty that there is a bit of a technical problem with both of these being grouped together in that one does preclude the other the way they are drafted. I do not think that was the intention of either party because both the Bloc Quebecois and the Reform Party share the same position on these issues, which is that there is no necessity to include gender but there are reasons for including date of birth.
I will have time to address this very general issue later in the debate. What should guide us in constructing data registers is whether information is necessary for the purpose at hand or at least relevant. The primary consideration in constructing these databases should be whether it is necessary and relevant from the perspective of the citizen rather than some other group that may have an interest in the information.
It is quite obvious that the information on electoral lists should be relevant to a person's ability to be eligible to cast a vote. For a very long time in Canada gender has not been relevant in terms of whether or not somebody can vote in this country. On the other hand, clearly date of birth is relevant because a voter has to be at least 18 years of age. Why then are we including the one and not including the other?
If we examine the transcripts of committee meetings and comments from various members and if members had heard some of the comments that were made in camera, it becomes apparent that the guiding factor was not the needs of the electoral list or the needs of the voter. They were the perceived needs of political parties and of politicians. It was expressed over and over again that MPs found it convenient. Parties found it useful to know the gender of a voter. In some cultures, in French, and even some names in English, there are times when there is confusion, based on the first name, about whether a person is male or female. Certainly in some of the newer ethnic communities in the country names may not be obviously male or female. Because of our unfamiliarity with the names, as anglophones or francophones we do not readily know whether these persons are male or female. It makes identification harder. It can occasionally lead to an awkward situation. However, it is both a trivial and unnecessary reason for including gender.
We have had concerns raised by females living alone that electoral lists expose the fact that they are females living alone and that these lists do circulate. We all know that electoral lists can only circulate under very restricted conditions for very restricted use. The fact is that they circulate widely during elections and probably most extra circulation of lists is rarely heard about or prosecuted. This does become a piece of information conveying the gender on the voter's list. It is unnecessary and it should not be there. In the province of Alberta, for example, it is not done and this is the case in other provinces.
That is something we think should be changed. I am surprised government members were not more sensitive about the needs of women when designing this legislation. I hope they will support these amendments.
I think they have more serious and perhaps even more dubious motives for refusing to include date of birth but I will let them speak for their own position on these matters.