Debates of Feb. 22nd, 2000

Canada Elections Act

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will choose my words this way. It would be a wonderful experience if just once on one issue members opposite would stand and say there are some reasonable points.

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

We did.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

They do not at all. They stand and say that this is the most draconian bill they have ever seen and that it is being jammed down people's throats.

Do members know why we have to use the tool called time allocation? If we did not, we would never get anything done in this place because opposition members get out of bed every morning and ask themselves one question: What shall we oppose today? They do not ask what they can do for Canadians today or what they can accomplish for their constituents?

They also ask what minister they can go after today? It does not matter if it is based on the truth. It does not matter if it is based on any kind of fact. It only matters if they think it will get them in the media or if they think they will get some points at home.

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It is particularly important in a debate when we are rushed for time to stick to the topic. I would ask you to ask the member to be relevant.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

I was following the debate. I am sure the hon. member will speak to the matter before the House.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am equally sure that this is simply an attempt to stop me from getting my points across. I understand that because they do not like to hear the facts.

What are they opposing? Let me talk about third party spending on elections. We know the Reform Party would love to give a blank cheque to Charlton Heston and the NRA out of Washington, Dallas or wherever to ride into Ottawa on horseback, shooting their pistols in the air, and let them spend whatever they want.

On the other side of the coin I am not sure Reformers would want to see money being allocated to a third party group like the National Action Committee on the Status of Women. I suspect they would not want to see that organization being given this kind of power.

What is fair in an electoral process? What is fair is that there are registered parties. There are registered candidates. For all the disagreements we have in this place, I personally have nothing but the utmost respect for anyone who stands for elected office for any party at any time. It takes a lot of courage. It takes a lot of commitment. It is not just for a Liberal. It takes a lot of courage to run as a Reformer in Canada. Let us imagine running in Ontario as a Reformer. It must be sort of like the appliance guy with the loneliest job in town. They have trouble getting their deposits back.

I respect the fact that the candidate who ran against me for the Reform Party came out more than the Tories did to the all candidate meetings to put forward his viewpoints, his ideas, what he believed in. He is a man in the community. I might even convince him to vote for me one day. I suspect he votes for my wife because he lives in her municipal riding, so he has some common sense.

Why should someone with an axe to grind, a third party that does not have the commitment or dedication, be allowed to have blank cheque to influence the outcome of the election or to be manipulated perhaps by a party that knows it does not have support in a certain region, whether it is Atlantic Canada, Ontario or the province of Quebec? Maybe they want to manipulate the voters through advertising. Does that work? I ask members to use the analogy of why tobacco companies advertise to try attract young smokers to their products. It is because it works. The reality is that advertising in politics works as well.

It is a very serious issue. It is not like we are saying they cannot have a say. They can spend up to $150,000 across the nation. I do not think that is unreasonable. They can put their viewpoints across. They can attend all-candidate meetings. They can go to the candidate of any party they want and demand that the person explain why he or she believes in whatever the issue happens to be. This is the democratic process. This is not a government and this is not a country that will tolerate the ability of any special interest group to hijack the agenda during an election campaign. That is very important.

I want to deal with another issue that members talked about, the appointment of the Chief Electoral Officer. Let us be clear. In this case a resolution is required of the House, not of the Senate, to approve that.

There is much about democracy in the bill. If the opposition thinks it is democratic for us to be sitting here tonight voting on 67 nonsensical amendments which they want to put forward, keeping members of parliament in this place until two or three o'clock in the morning, I do not call that productive. I call that destructive democracy. It will not improve the bill and they know it.

They have had every opportunity to have their oar in the water. We should support the bill. We should pass the bill. We should stop the silly political games that are being played opposite.

[John Solomon, NDP, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to debate Bill C-2 today. We have before the House a very important piece of legislation which outlines in finite detail the democratic process in Canada. It outlines for Canadians how we should be electing our representatives in a democratic way, in an inclusive way and in a transparent way to represent the interests of the House of Commons in issues which pertain to all Canadians.

We have seen the Liberal government opposite continue on its anti-democratic path. It is very unfortunate but it continues to crush debate in the House of Commons. This is parliament. We have been sent from all parts of the country to speak about issues which are important to all of us.

What do members of the Liberal government do? They spend hour after hour strategizing on how to reduce debate and reduce the importance of parliament. They do this by time allocation. They are implementing a shortened debate period.

We will be sitting for seven or eight hours in the House of Commons on this bill and 301 members of parliament will have maybe three hours to debate it. The government has used time allocation to shorten the debate from a natural progression of spending a few days to hear the views of other members on the bill, how to improve it and make it better. It has spent all its time taking democracy away from Canadians. Time allocation is when the government invokes a time period of two or three hours to debate a bill which is hundreds of pages long.

I am not sure whether the Prime Minister or the government House leader had time to read the bill. It is 258 pages long and they want 301 members of parliament to speak no more than 10 minutes and condense that into three hours of debate. This is anti-democratic. It is an indication of Liberal priorities. They do not want any debate on democracy because they like the closed system. It is a very closed system where very few people are elected to the House of Commons to represent 30 million Canadians. When we get here they shut down debate because they do not like exactly what has been going on.

We in the NDP are very concerned about that. We object to the strategies and the terrible lack of democracy Liberals are pushing on Canadians. We feel the motions we are debating now have some problems, but some of them are very good.

We believe there are five cornerstones of democracy and we want to apply those cornerstones to Bill C-2. The government House leader knows exactly what those cornerstones are. That is why he is suppressing debate. They are responsibility, accessibility, accountability, inclusiveness and transparency. We put Bill C-2 to the test on those five cornerstones and the bill fails in many ways in each and every one of them.

With respect to the particular grouping we are talking about, the issue of numbered companies contributing to political parties and candidates was put forward by the NDP as an amendment. We are asking all parties to embrace and support it because it provides additional transparency with respect to who is giving money to political parties and candidates. Concerning transparency, the way it works now is that if a numbered company makes a contribution to the constituency of the industry minister or to the Liberal Party in general, it only has to provide its number, for example 651391 Canada Inc. There is no indication who that represents or who is behind that contribution.

Our amendments make it more transparent by calling upon the numbered company making a contribution to outline who is its chief executive officer or its president and to outline their addresses. Many Canadians may not know but the addresses of numbered companies are primarily those of law firms. Lawyers are the legal bodies behind the entities and they just use their law offices as the head offices of numbered companies. It is very difficult to obtain this information. We feel this is one amendment that should be supported.

In addition there is the issue regarding voting hours in British Columbia. My three NDP colleagues from Vancouver East, Burnaby—Douglas, and Kamloops, Thompson and Highland Valleys, believe very strongly that the hours in the act should be changed. The amendment in this grouping makes that suggestion. They are calling for the hours in British Columbia to be from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. instead of 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. because the lower mainland is a very congested area and the transportation system is not as up to par as it should be. People in the lower mainland tend to work far distances from their residences and therefore will have difficulty voting by 7 p.m.

As critic on Bill C-2 they asked me to make that recommendation to the government. They had many instances and anecdotal stories about how people were unable to exercise their franchise in the last election because the polls in the lower mainland closed at 7 p.m. We are asking the government to consider supporting this amendment.

I have put forward amendments with respect to numbered companies which would apply not only to candidates in political parties but to third parties as well. We hear that the Reform and the Conservative parties are very cautious about this amendment. They want third parties, which could be the oil companies, the prescription pharmaceutical corporations, the banks or the National Rifle Association in the States, not to be transparent in terms of contributions made to them in order for third parties like these organizations to attack, personally, individual candidates or members of parliament who are seeking re-election.

We find that to be unfair. Third parties should qualify and follow the rules of Bill C-2 with respect to numbered companies and the transparency of political contributions so that when the oil companies attack my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst in an election campaign we will know where the moneys came from. We will know whether they came from corporations, Imperial Oil or Shell, or from third parties which feel we have been fighting these issues to defend consumers, that we have been taking and holding accountable the oil companies which have undertaken to gouge consumers. We feel that the contributions which are made to these particular organizations have to be crystal clear and transparent.

We in the NDP also support the notion of regular, fixed election dates. We would like to see the federal election held in the middle of June every four years. The writs would be issued on the second Monday of May, every fourth year. The election would take place in the second or third week of June, depending on the season and the calendar. We feel that regular election dates would take away a lot of the politicking that members opposite are so inclined to participate in, rather than deciding on what kind of action they are going to take on behalf of Canadians.

The biggest problem we have was mentioned by the member for Mississauga West a few minutes ago: “What shall I oppose today?” That was his line about the opposition. Some members of the opposition get up every day to oppose things. New Democrats get up every day to make recommendations as to what actions we could take to solve the problems of the country. The Liberals do not seem to get it. They do not listen to our recommendations, which, by the way, are embraced by the majority of Canadians in many ways.

For example, today in question period I stood in the House to ask the Prime Minister what action plan he was instituting to defend the Canadian economy, consumers, truckers and agricultural producers from the OPEC oil cartel and soaring energy prices. Rather than saying that we have a plan or we are working on a plan, I said that maybe the Prime Minister should look to the Americans. America is the home of capitalism and free enterprise, where this sort of thing was born, and it has undertaken a 17-point program to support its consumers, truckers and farmers. Yet all our government does is pass the buck to the provinces. Rather than saying that we oppose what the Prime Minister is doing, we say this is what he should be doing with respect to oil prices. He should be calling together the provinces and the oil companies to figure out what can be done. They should look at the recommendations of the U.S. to know how it is helping its consumers and business people.

The Liberals only listen to what they want to hear. They do not want to have any debate on issues like Bill C-2, as we have proposed. We feel that it is unacceptable to have this kind of suppressive government. It suppresses debate and discourages members from putting forward alternatives. It does not like the views of the grassroots in the House. It does not even like the views of the majority in the House. It tends to discount this, say that it will deal with that, and it just calls the opposition names. I think that is pretty low class. On behalf of the NDP, I put forward our opposition to Bill C-2.

[Jean-Guy Chrétien, Bloc, Frontenac—Mégantic, QC]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-2 redefines the federal government's position on the way elections are conducted.

I will focus my remarks on the funding of political parties, the appointment of election officers in the various ridings, the transparency of postal voting, equity, compliance with the Elections Act on which we will be voting democratically in this parliament, and the sacred principle of one person one vote.

First of all, I will discuss the one person, one vote principle in the last election in Quebec. It would seem that Quebec has one of the most advanced and strict electoral systems of all countries in the world. Yet, the Liberals have found ways to literally steal an election. That is what happened in the riding of Anjou where they stole—

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

I ask the member to refrain from using such words and to choose his words very carefully. There are words that cannot be used in the House.

[Martin Cauchon, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. You just drew the attention of the House to some words used by my colleague opposite. He started his speech by saying that Quebec was a country. Everyone knows that Quebec is still—

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

I do not think this is a point of order, but rather a point of debate.

[Jean-Guy Chrétien, Bloc, Frontenac—Mégantic, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank you for your co-operation.

In the riding of Anjou, Minister Pierre Bélanger lost the election by a handful of votes—

[An hon. member]

Come on.

[Jean-Guy Chrétien, Bloc, Frontenac—Mégantic, QC]

—votes that went to Jean-Sébastien Lamoureux. It was proven beyond any doubt that Jean-Sébastien Lamoureux and his team managed to get hundreds of people to vote more than once—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[Jean-Guy Chrétien, Bloc, Frontenac—Mégantic, QC]

—and it would seem that these people got paid $10 per vote. One such person collected $130. At $10 per vote, we can quickly figure that this floater voted 13 times.

As I said, Quebec is recognized world-wide for having the strictest system. Be that as it may, we lost the riding of Anjou. I know that, when Jean-Sébastien Lamoureux rises to vote in the National Assembly, several members of the government party tell him “Jean-Sébastien, you just vote once here. This is a democratic institution”. Even the Liberals are laughing up their sleeve, because they know full well that a number of people in that riding each voted several times.

Speaking of money, which, in my opinion, is the core of the issue, the distinguished Pierre Corbeil and Marcel Massé, the former member from across the river here, had an interesting arrangement. Pierre Corbeil was apparently provided by Marcel Massé, his department or his office, with the list of future recipients of substantial grants from HRDC, a topic which is the subject of much debate these days. Pierre Corbeil received cash amounts of between $5,000 and $25,000.

We do not have the file indicating what became of it, if some did not get lost in the back of his car, hon. members know what I mean by that.

Pierre Corbeil, like CINAR, admitted his guilt. Probably the party footed the bill, including the fine.

This leads me to speak about my riding of Frontenac—Mégantic. The people of Lac Mégantic are proud folk. The people living in the Granit regional municipality are proud folk and they are respectful of laws and regulations. In the last election, on June 2, 1997, the local member of the National Assembly, a regular citizen with several elections under her belt, both provincial and federal, took it upon herself to go around shaking hands with people at the Centre Monseigneur-Bonin as if she were running for election.

She was given several warnings, but the Primeau's, the people in charge of security and of seeing that the voting ran smoothly, had to ask her to leave, after of course the usual solicitation of support for the Liberal candidate.

The Bloc Quebecois organization for Lac Mégantic filed, with the assistance of Pierre Greffard, an official complaint with the office of the chief electoral officer. The outcome was more or less the same as in Anjou, the same as with Pierre Corbeil, in the biggest possible mess.

If an elected member of the provincial legislature can scoff at federal legislation at a poll, how can there be any respect? When we see, for example, that the Parliament of Canada is sending a mission abroad to monitor an election when, here, we are not even capable of ensuring one person, one vote, and limiting the power of money in an election, I think we are patting ourselves on the back unjustifiably.

The opposition raised the question of postal votes when Bill C-2 was considered in committee. Postal voting is one more devious way of getting dozens of votes out of one person. The envelope for a mail-in ballot can be bought, as we have seen in Anjou, with Jean-Sébastien Lamoureux. In some poor neighbourhoods, they can be bought for under $10. It involves taking a busload of people to the office of the chief electoral officer, where everybody gets off one after the other with an envelope, and on the bus, they give it to the organizer, who, naturally, has the money.

The Liberals know full well what I mean, because they are expert at organizing elections. They are so expert that sometimes they get told things in private meetings, how they can proceed, and that is a scandal.

I heard earlier the deputy government whip say that money should not play a determining role in the election of one candidate or another. I can tell her that she spoke out of both sides of her mouth at the same time, since the Liberal Party uses CKAC's slogan “The Power of Words” in conjunction with another one: “The Power of Money”.

The list of generous contributors to the Liberal Party is really scandalous. Bombardier contributed over $75,000 to the Liberal Party in 1998—that is what is in the books—and $30,000 to the Progressive Conservative Party. That makes for good collecting. To collect $30,000 in my riding, I have to work very hard collecting $10 here, $25 there, and $100 somewhere else, while the Liberal Party collects $75,000 and the Progressive Conservative Party, $30,000, from a single contributor. Members will understand that, if Mr. Beaudoin, the CEO of Bombardier, gives $75,000 to the grits, he will reap $7.5 million a month later. It does not take long.

Now, moving to appointments, because I see my time is quickly running out. In 1993, in the riding of Frontenac, Ms. Roy was the returning officer. She was very competent, totally above suspicion and popular with all the political parties. When it came to power in 1993, the Liberal Party turfed her out and appointed my friend André Pomerleau, a man who was very dedicated to the community, but particularly to the Liberal Party.

Ms. Roy was relieved of her duties and replaced by André. He was retired, while for Ms. Roy the job was a means of supplementing her income and being able to afford some of the niceties.

In Quebec, in our nation, we do not fire returning officers after every change of government. In Frontenac, Chantal has been returning officer since 1985, if memory serves, and she will continue in that position as long as she continues to do a good job in the Government of Quebec's elections.

In closing, the Bloc Quebecois will, of course, not support Bill C-2, because there are too many issues that we cannot agree on, particularly with respect to the funding of political parties. I propose a change in the way political parties are funded. Not surprisingly, what I would suggest is that the government give each candidate a certain amount—a bit along the lines of what Quebec does—so that he or she can conduct a truly democratic election campaign, and let the best man, or woman, win.

[Cliff Breitkreuz, Reform, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak against this legislation. Unless otherwise amended by members from all parties and approved by members from all parties, it will turn out to be a bad piece of legislation. This legislation is being pushed through the House in order to suppress debate and yet again, time allocation has been invoked. Shame on the government for cutting off debate.

There have been over 60 time allocations in six years. That is the Liberal record, which is about double the Mulroney record. Shame on the Liberals for shutting down debate on legislation with provisions that would stifle Canadian citizens their freedom of speech during federal elections. It stifles freedoms and liberties that go back to the Magna Carta of 1215. Rather than keeping the powers of government in check, Bill C-2 is expanding the powers of the federal government.

Bill C-2 is a gag law. It gags the freedom of Canadian citizens the right to speak up and be heard, hence it is dangerous legislation. The Liberal government dubs Bill C-2 as legislation that will limit the influence of money in politics. That is for everyone except of course the Liberals themselves. That is what it is doing.

Under the legislation the Liberal governing party will be allowed to spend almost $20 million in the country's various ridings, but it does not stop there. It can top that off with another $12 million nationally which it can spend in any riding it wishes. It is all taxpayers' dollars. Some limit. The sky is virtually the limit for Liberal spending.

What about private citizens groups or other organizations? The following just shows the kind of bastion of hypocrisy the Liberal government really is. Bill C-2 would limit the spending of a private citizen, or an organization no matter how large, to an average of $500 per constituency across the country with no more spending than $3,000 targeted at any one riding.

Here is the stark contrast and hypocrisy of it all. Liberal candidates can spend millions of taxpayers' dollars to get themselves elected to office. However private citizens can spend at the most a few paltry thousand dollars and they are not even trying to get elected to office.

That is why Bill C-2 is so dangerous. Where do the millions that the Liberals can spend come from? Under Bill C-2 the majority of the $30 million plus will come from taxpayers. How can this happen? How in heaven's name is this done? It is done, as all political bagmen know, through a generous system of tax credits and rebates. It is interesting that under this bill a limit really would never be reached.

It is the private citizens that the Liberals are trying to muzzle, even if the citizens are spending their own money. Bill C-2 really is not about how much money is being spent, but about who is spending it.

Here is what it boils down to. It is entirely okay for Liberals to spend the voters' money to spread Liberal opinions, but not for voters to spend it on their own opinions. That is even if they are not asking for a dime in tax breaks and slush funds.

Speaking of slush funds, Bill C-2 leaves contributions to Liberal associations and party campaigns a private matter, just like the deliberations of caucus and cabinet. In other words, it remains perfectly legal for wealthy contributors to meet privately with government decision makers and arrange to make money available to a Liberal association in exchange for a favour. The public of course would never really know about it unless there is an internal audit, like the billion dollar boondoggle at HRDC.

On the other hand, if private citizens and organizations use their money to communicate their views directly and publicly to voters, this would constitute buying influence in government and they could go to jail. George Orwell would be proud and heck, so would Joseph Stalin.

Here is the biggest scam of it all. Under Bill C-2 most of the money the Liberals will spend in the next election will not even count as spending and thus faces no limits at all. I am talking about all the money the Liberal government can spend on self-promoting advertising.

The federal government is the biggest advertiser in the country. Here is a small example. Liberal backbenchers can send mailers to their constituencies attacking private organizations. It may cost more than $3,000, but it will not count as election spending as long as it is mailed a few seconds before the writ is dropped. This is a standard practice of government MPs.

A bigger example is in the Prime Minister's own riding. Through various agencies and programs, $12 million in grants and loans found their way to Shawinigan in time for the last election. The amount is even larger than the spending limit for the Liberal Party at the national level.

Under Bill C-2 that is the kind of pork barrelling that private citizens could not expose and attack in the next election. Private people would have to remain quiet, but will they? Will they?

Do we really think that a group that believes in individual freedom will comply with a law that threatens prison terms for citizens using their own money to communicate their own ideas to other citizens? Do we really think a group that believes in democracy will support a law that gives governments virtually unlimited use of public dollars to finance their re-elections? Do we really think a group that believes in free elections will adhere to a law that makes it a crime for citizens to publicly advertise in a free press, but gives uncontrolled avenues of private influence to friends and cronies? Of course not.

There is no doubt that Bill C-2 will pass in the House unamended, but the gag law will be defeated. This oppressive law will be overturned as others have been overturned. That will be a good thing for the freedoms and liberties of all Canadians.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Before we go to the hon. member for Trois-Rivières, I want to put on the record the fact that I listened carefully to the presentation of the hon. member for Yellowhead and the word hypocrisy was used. As all members know, no word is of itself unparliamentary; it is the form and the context. As long as that word which has been repeatedly ruled unparliamentary is not addressed to a specific person, a specific member, but is used in general terms to reflect an action, it is a word that is used in the English language, it is descriptive and in my view it is parliamentary and quite permissible.

[Yves Rocheleau, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always with a lot of pride that we in the Bloc Quebecois are called to speak as representatives of Quebec's heartland.

It is perfectly natural for us to discuss such an issue as the elections act, given our tradition as Quebecers. We can truly speak about tradition as it dates back to 1976-77, the year the Parti Quebecois was elected under the late René Lévesque, who had transformed Quebec election mores. This was a demand clearly expressed by the people.

It is therefore with great pride that we participate in this debate. We are proud, as Claude Ryan, this staunch federalist Quebecer said yesterday when he testified with great courage and paid homage to Quebec democracy. I was deeply moved to see the pride with which he spoke of Quebec democracy and our institutions in Quebec. I was also moved by the sadness which was permeating his remarks about how our democratic institutions are being trampled by a will coming from God knows where in Canada.

This is a fabrication, not to say a machination, of the Privy Council, presided by the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. Thus, in spite of the fact that there are some 20 members from Quebec among government members, we on this side feel no respect. However fine some of these members are, we feel no respect for Quebec democracy. Quebec has nothing to learn about democracy from this government, the people of Canada or any other people in the western world or elsewhere.

The Quebec people accepted with great calm and dignity the close result in the 1995 referendum. In other countries, it might have lead to popular upheaval. It took only a few hours for everyone to understand that this result had to be accepted, even though it was eminently frustrating.

In a context of activism, losing a referendum with 49.4% of the vote is hard to swallow, particularly since we were ahead for part of the evening, as members will remember. It takes great political maturity and a great sense of democracy for things to be as dignified as they were on the evening of October 30, 1995.

All that to say that, in terms of democracy, we remain very comfortable. It is all the more upsetting, not to say humiliating, to see the sad spectacle that has been unfolding before us since just before the Christmas holidays. It is being perpetuated by this government's unreasonable desire to rush through Bill C-20, which changes the eminently democratic rules governing the way election are run in Quebec.

I will begin my presentation by quoting the 1991 Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing, which stated in volume 1, page 483:

A cornerstone of public confidence in any democratic system of representative government is an electoral process that is administered efficiently and an electoral law that is enforced impartially. Securing public trust requires that the election officials responsible for administration and enforcement be independent of the government of the day and not subject to partisan influence.

These words are very important. It is said that election officials must be independent from the government of the day and not subject to partisan influence. Yet, the very opposite is happening today in Canada.

That is somewhat surprising when we know what the Canadian government is claiming in foreign countries and it has the audacity to lecture so-called underdeveloped countries and tell them how to administer their electoral activities.

I had the privilege to meet a young and talented lawyer from Quebec who was in Cameroon at public expense, for the Canadian Department of Justice, to explain to Cameroonians how to administer the electoral process. I believe he was not comfortable with this task. He could not, honestly—at least I hope not—make suggestions to Cameroonians, while believing in true democracy, on the strategic and sensitive function of local returning officer, as well as on the role of chief electoral officer who, hopefully, is not designated on a partisan basis.

As we know, returning officers are institutionally chosen by the political party in power, which is a true scandal, considering the importance of this function and the claims of Canada in foreign countries. I say that without necessarily judging the persons in office. However, it is almost mandatory, though this is probably not written down anywhere, for those who want to be returning officers to be members of the Liberal Party of Canada. It is even better if one has been a defeated candidate, a Liberal MP or president or vice-president of the Liberal Party's riding association. Then, one has a good chance at being chosen.

Decades go by, and it is truly indecent. It is even more indecent if we consider that in Quebec—Canada's most important neighbour for all sorts of reasons, historical as well as economic, a special partner that will remain so in the future with a good partnership agreement that people from both sides of the Ottawa River will come to wish for one day—a process was established when the Parti Quebecois came to power in 1976 under the determined leadership of René Lévesque, who had made it its second priority, right behind the law on the French language, to pass a law on the financing of political parties, designed to ensure the independence of the whole electoral system. In the dark ages when Duplessis—whom many federalist Quebecers love to despise—was in power in Quebec, he ran things just like the Liberals are running them today, as if we were in the dark ages.

We have corrected things by ensuring that that strategic position—we cannot overstress this—is occupied by someone who has been selected through a democratic and neutral process that ensures that those who are designated today, in the most neutral way possible, as returning officers in all the ridings of Quebec are chosen for their personal and human qualities as well as for their experience.

This gives rise to a situation such as the one in the federal riding of Trois-Rivières—this is not because she is not a nice person and, furthermore, she has the same name as mine—where the former vice-president of the Liberal Party of Canada, a very charming person to whom I send my regards, has been and still is, until further notice, the returning officer.

In Quebec, it is the former returning officer from the Conservative era who has been chosen, and by competition. He had the best resume, he made the best presentation and he defended his case the best. He was chosen among other candidates who had applied, probably people from the Parti Quebecois. One must surely like politics to apply for this kind of job.

Given his skills and his relevant experience, it is the former returning officer chosen by the Conservatives at the time who is now the returning officer for Quebec in the riding of Trois-Rivières.

This illustrates very well the nobility of the process in Quebec, and it is urgent that the federal government copy that process, particularly as the chief electoral officer of Canada, probably an appointed official, has long been recommending that the government act in a non partisan way.

The government only needs the political determination, instead of trying to basely take advantage of the situation, as it is doing right now.

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am honoured to stand in this place today on behalf of the constituents of Elk Island, whom I have the honour to represent, in defence of democracy and in defence of our country.

The question we are dealing with today is that of democracy. What is democracy? I humbly submit that the Liberals have it wrong. They somehow feel that democracy is when they get their own way, even though they received only 38% of the popular vote in the last election. They feel that with a majority in this place they can ram everything through.

That time allocation has been invoked on this bill is despicable. We are at second reading and debate will end before my speech is over. That will be the end of second reading. However, by the force of their majority membership the Liberals have already closed off debate on third reading, which has not yet begun. We have not yet debated the amendments which were made at committee and already the Liberals have put time allocation on third reading. That was the vote which was held earlier this afternoon, which all Liberals were forced to vote for. I find this totally despicable. It is anti-democratic. For the Liberals to do that on this important bill is unconscionable.

I know that the technical name of the bill is an act to amend the Canada Elections Act, but I would like to call it the pump primer bill. We had a well on the farm where I grew up in Saskatchewan. The rule was that we always kept the primer pail full because if there was no water in the primer pail the pump would not work. Water was poured into the pump to prime it and when it was running the first thing we did was to replenish the pail so that the next time we went for water the pump would work. The Liberals are doing that with this bill. Bill C-2 is a primer bill.

The Liberals, I believe, are aware of the fact that after the next election they will no longer have a majority. They are trying to increase their chances of electoral success by doing everything possible in Bill C-2 to stack the odds in their favour. The Liberals are doing this with a number of different provisions in the bill, including the continuation of patronage appointments in the election process. This will hopefully win the favour of people in their ridings who could make money during the election by being good appointees of the government. That is one element of this bill which should not be passed. This is, after all, a democracy. This is where we want to hear the will of the people. However, the government does not know anything about democracy.

I would like to quote the Prime Minister. I came across this accidentally when I was looking at Hansard . Last week the Prime Minister, in response to a question from a Bloc member, said “I allowed a free vote in the House of Commons”. We do not have to be very brilliant to see through that statement. In other words, the Prime Minister has the power to tell the people “You vote the way I tell you. When I choose, I will allow you to vote freely”.

I believe very strongly in the principle of free votes in the House of Commons. I am very pleased that the new Canadian alliance has that in its policies, as did the Reform Party. I am proud to say that in every vote in this House I have voted according to what I believed was best for my constituents. Not once have I taken a voting order from the party hierarchy in Ottawa or anywhere else, contrary to what is done by members opposite. This is the essence of democracy. Does this government believe in democracy? No, it does not.

Let me give the House another example. We now have over 500,000 names on petitions asking the government to deal with the issue of child pornography. At the present time child pornography is legal in British Columbia. It is making inroads across the whole country because of this spineless government which is not willing to take action. We have 500,000 citizens who have said “Do something”, but the government does not do a thing. It just sits on it and lets it slide by. In a democracy, the wishes of the people, which have been so clearly expressed, would result in some action that would reflect the wishes of Canadian citizens. That is an area which is very important and the government is doing nothing.

I am absolutely appalled at the fact that the government will not accept even simple amendments. Earlier today the minister in charge of this bill said, off the record, that the reason the government had to invoke time allocation was because of all the deleterious amendments put forward by the opposition.

There is another way to speed up the passage of the bill, and that is to accept some of the amendments. To automatically assume that those amendments, because they come from one of the four opposition parties, are not worthy of respect or implementation is a false assumption which the government arrogantly assumes. Instead of listening to the amendments and changing some of the rules, it jams it through.

On command, it gets all of its members to rise, one at a time, when their strings are pulled, to vote for time allocation to shut down the debate on the democratic process in this country. I would be ashamed if I were a Liberal. In fact, if I were a Liberal I would hide somewhere, put my head under a blanket and hope that no one would ever find me. This is absolutely atrocious.

There are interesting concepts in this bill that need to be corrected. There are very, very important things. I would like to say that the government's lack of response on these meaningful amendments will backfire. It is saying that there will continue to be the rule of 50 members per party, and all of these other things. I do not have the time to go into them. We have finished the debate. It is done. It is closure.

I will use my last 30 seconds to make a simple prediction. The government thinks that it will jam this bill through with all of the advantages that will stack the deck toward the Liberals in the next election. That is going to backfire. Let it be said that this was first said here. I predict that, at minimum, the Liberals will be brought down to a minority level government the next time. At maximum, they will be where the Conservatives were after the election of 1993.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

It being 5.15 p.m., pursuant to order made earlier today, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the report stage and second reading of the bill now before the House.

[Ted White, Reform, North Vancouver, BC]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It has come to my attention that some of the amendments that were put forward by Reform, which will be voted on tonight, are seconded or proposed by a person other than the member for North Vancouver, myself, or the member for Elk Island. Some of those members unfortunately are not able to be present tonight.

Earlier this day we co-operated in the House to allow the transfer of some amendments from the NDP to another person's name. Therefore I would ask for the unanimous consent of the House to transfer all the Reform motions which are not in the name of the hon. member for North Vancouver or the hon. member for Elk Island to be moved by the hon. member for North Vancouver and seconded by the hon. member for Elk Island.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

Does the hon. member have the agreement of the House to proceed in such a way?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.