Mr. Speaker, the official opposition has two motions in Group No. 5, the Reform Party has three. Our first motion, Motion No. 7, is to replace in the election legislation the notion of "résidence ordinaire" or "main residence" by that of "domicile".
We are giving the government the opportunity to flesh out the proposition it made following the referendum held on October 30, 1995. The government passed in this House a resolution to recognize in principle the distinctiveness of Quebec with regard to language, culture and civil law.
With the notion of "domicile", we are addressing the third characteristic of the distinct society of Quebec, since this is a civil law notion. In Quebec, we usually define "domicile" as the place where the voters have hearth and home, that is where they ordinarily reside.
However, the elections legislation does not use this civil law notion. It seems to me that we need to be consistent, here. Since the government took upon itself to recognize the distinctiveness of
Quebec right after the referendum, it could show it in some concrete way.
Since property and civil rights are defined in the British North America Act, 1867 as a provincial area of jurisdiction, pursuant to section 92(13), it would only be reasonable, at least where Quebec is concerned, since it availed itself of these provisions to develop its own Civil Code, that the notion of "domicile" be used as an eligibility requirement for voters, along with their age. Otherwise, we end up with nothing but wishful thinking expressed in November 1995 without any repercussions.
When drafting a bill for two nations that vote under a unique set of rules of law with different civil law principles, we must take into account the Canadian duality between Quebec's civil law and the common law of the English provinces, where the concept of main residence is very important.
Why impose concepts of common law to a province, which has had a civil law tradition since Confederation and even before, since Quebec's civil code, must I add, was approved by the Parliament of a united Canada the year before the federation was born in 1867?
Our civil code goes back to 1866. It was amended several times since, especially concerning matrimonial regimes. There were the great reforms of 1930-31 following the Dorion Report; the 1964 reforms concerning the community of property, where the husband, although he is the administrator of the community, had to have the consent of his spouse to continue administering the community, at least in general; and the 1970 reform of the matrimonial regimes provided for in the civil code.
From then on, the partnership of acquests became the legal regime in the civil code for spouses without a marriage contract. There were also, in the early 1980s, Bill 89, which was passed by the National Assembly, and the Loi sur le patrimoine familial , which was passed in the late 1980s. This new civil code maintains of course the general principles of French law which has always applied in Quebec.
So why would the government impose upon us legislation which is foreign to us under section 92(13)? Why would it force us to accept terms which have no basis in our legal system? The Fathers of Confederation recognized, in 1867, that Quebec was really a distinct society with regard to its civil law. That did not happen in October of November 1995. This duality in terms of civil law was recognized in 1867 in the founding legislation. Our electoral law must respect that.
We do not need an electoral law which uses the same words from coast to coast for the whole Dominion. The Dominion, in terms of civil law, is comprised of nine provinces that have a common law system and one province that has a civil law tradition, each system having its own merits, of course. We will not debate this any further. That was the first motion brought forward by the official opposition.
The second motion is Motion No. 11. It is just a little strange that we should have had to propose this amendment. This provision should have been in the bill from the outset. In fact, MotionsNos. 12 and 13 brought forward by the Reform Party, which are in the same group, essentially call for the same thing, namely that the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada be allowed to use provincial lists.
The same taxpayers pay for the lists of electors in the provinces, where the qualifications of electors are exactly the same, where the basic notions to have the right to vote are exactly the same, the notion of universal suffrage being applied everywhere in Canada. Yet, the bill before us today does not allow the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada to use provincial lists if the enumeration was conducted more than 12 months before the date on which such lists would be used.
In other words, in this connection, the bill could have said that Canada's chief electoral officer is not authorized to use Quebec's list, because the census used to create it was held in September 1995. The census used to create it will run out next May 1, at which time the list will be published, and the list will be as good as possible.
It will therefore be more than 12 months. It is already more than 12 months. The federal government will not be able to use this list, put together at a cost of several million dollars, because the legislator does not wish to recognize the quality of the list drawn up by Quebec's director general of elections. The government does not wish to assume its responsibilities with respect to this work and to legislation that is more forward looking than the federal legislation.
They tell us: "We have not checked the validity of the lists drawn up by Quebec. Quebec's lists are prepared for different polling divisions". These are logistical problems, computer problems.
If Quebec is able to use its permanent list for municipal elections in which the polling divisions are completely different, why is it not possible to use Quebec's provincial list for a federal election in which polling divisions are larger?
Let the computer experts work it out, but as a declaration of principle, I think it obvious that, in the interests of harmony, and also of economy, of the public money for which we are all accountable to our constituents, the broadest possible use of provincial lists should be permitted. I am not speaking only of Quebec's list. It could be Alberta's, or Prince Edward Island's, drawn up with the assistance of Elections Canada on top of that. It is rather strange to see electoral lists drawn up by Elections Canada
excluded from use in a federal election under the pretext that more than 12 months may have gone by.
The correction proposed in Bill C-63 at the committee stage is only a partial one, not allowing the use of the Quebec list of electors. In other words, the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada will not be able to use the Quebec list of electors for the election of 75 members of this House.
I respectfully submit that the Bloc Quebecois amendment and the Reform Party amendment strongly resemble each other. Ours is more binding on the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, in that it requires him to attempt to conclude an agreement with the Director General of Elections of Quebec, whereas the Reform amendment does not go quite as far, requiring the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada to check that the provincial voter's register is adequate. If it is found to be adequate, he ought then to make use of it.
I sense that the hon. member for Calgary West is dying to explain his amendment. I shall therefore yield the floor to him, with your permission, Mr. Speaker.