Madam Speaker, I and standing to speak on the Group No. 3 motions to Bill C-2, the Canada Elections Act.
Members will remember that the bill was originally sent to committee prior to second reading on the pretence of making meaningful amendments. The minister said that because the bill was important he was putting it into committee so that we could make meaningful amendments.
We deliberated on the bill for several weeks in committee for long hours; from nine in the morning until ten or eleven at night. We discussed many of the amendments or similar amendments to what we are discussing here. However, the government never took it seriously. The reason it sent the bill to committee before second reading was to make a few technical amendments of its own. It pretty much ignored, as the speaker before me said, any reasonable amendments submitted by the opposition.
The Group No. 3 motions are mainly concerned with the area of appointments to staff positions within Elections Canada. As speakers before me have mentioned, the returning officers throughout Elections Canada are appointed by the Prime Minister.
Why would Canadians be happy to have in their electoral system, which is supposed to be totally non-partisan, the Prime Minister appointing all of the 301 returning officers across the country? The answer is that they are not happy. It is outrageous that the government can use this bill to appoint Liberal Party hacks to positions within Elections Canada all the way down to returning officers and deputy returning officers. Out in the field positions of Elections Canada, all the parties get to appoint people.
During the last election many of my colleagues, myself included, told the returning officers that we would not participate in this patronage exercise. We told them that they should advertise the positions and get the best people for the job. That is the way it should be done, from top to bottom in Elections Canada.
The member who spoke before me mentioned the questions we asked the Chief Electoral Officer in committee. I asked the Chief Electoral Officer if, when Elections Canada was helping third world countries and emerging democracies to set up their elections legislation, he ever recommended the system of patronage that we have here in Canada.
Jean Pierre Kingsley, the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, said:
—obviously when I go out on the international scene I do not recommend that the Canadian system be emulated where it comes to the appointment of returning officers. I clearly indicate, as I do in Canada, that the appointment of returning officers under the present system is an anachronism.
It is plain wrong and improper, in an elections act that is supposed to be non-partisan, for this political patronage to go on.
I would like to speak at length about the patronage aspect of the bill but, in many ways, it is actually other areas of the bill that have come to overshadow this section. For example, there are a series of legal challenges that are certain to be launched against the bill based on previous legal activity both at the provincial and federal levels.
A series of legal challenges are certain on a thing called the 50 candidate rule, which requires a party to have 50 candidates before it can put a party name on ballot. The Communist Party of Canada took the federal government to court on that issue. It won its case in Ontario. I cannot understand why the minister is persisting with a ridiculous and stupid provision in the bill that has already been struck down by the courts. Why would he not just reach a consensus with the small parties that came to committee and said that they would be satisfied with 12 members? They did not have to have the two that the courts had said. They would agree to 12 because that was sensible and it related to the rules of the House. The minister would not agree.
Then we have the third party spending, which has just been struck down again in the courts of B.C. In the court in British Columbia, the judge specifically mentioned that the evidence used in the Libman case by this minister to justify a gag law in his elections act is invalid because the evidence used was based on a preliminary report by a UBC political science professor, Richard Johnston, which indicated that third party spending might influence election outcomes.
Although that finding went into the Lortie commission report, which was subsequently used in the Libman case, Professor Johnston later concluded that third party endorsements had no discernible effect on election outcomes.
There have been three studies done in Canada, as well as studies done in other countries, on the effects or non-effects of third party spending in elections. After studying that evidence, Justice Brenner, in the B.C. case, stated:
—there is no evidence which would allow me to conclude that third party advertising or spending has an impact on voter intentions.
To override Charter rights it is necessary that there be more than a general hypothetical concern about a problem when there is no evidence to demonstrate that it has existed in the past or that it is likely to exist in the future.
Professor Johnston's report, which was used in the Libman case, actually concluded, by studying the different impacts, that sometimes third party spending had the apparent effect of working against a candidate in one riding but, on exactly the same issue, had the apparent effect of helping a candidate in another riding.
For example, on the National Citizens' Coalition issues, that are often a part of the third party spending activity, there was no evidence in Professor Johnston's studies that could conclude that the spending had any particular effect in a riding. So that part of the bill is definitely flawed and will be subject to a court challenge.
Judge Brenner, in a February 9 ruling of the B.C. Supreme Court, stated that there were certain circumstances in which the goal of fairness in elections would support an argument for third party advertising.
If, in a future election campaign, for example, all of the political parties were to agree on a significant policy, then the lack of third party advertising would deprive the voters of a alternative view of that policy. That is a very strong argument in favour of third party spending limits.
Although the main thrust of the motions that we are discussing right now deal with patronage appointments to Elections Canada, I know that the minister is completely unresponsive to any of the amendments that were proposed to fix the problem, just as he is completely unresponsive to any of the court rulings which have shown him he is misguided in other areas of the bill. He is misguided with the 50 candidate rule. He is misguided with third party spending. He is also misguided as far as the publication of poll results goes.
I do not know why he persists in trying to reinstate parts of the bill that are continually being struck down by the courts. Is it a game for him? Is he trying to make the National Citizens' Coalition and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation spend their money in court challenges knowing that the minister does not have to pay out of his own pocket for his side of the thing? It is the taxpayers of Canada who end up paying. I wish he would not treat it like a game. I wish he would treat it with seriousness. I wish he would sit down and actually negotiate amendments to the bill that would make it more meaningful.
When members on the other side say that we do not free vote, that is simply not true. We often support their amendments. On this very bill we have supported at least 20 of their amendments. We have analyzed them, taken a look at them and have said that they are sensible amendments. We are supporting some of the Bloc amendments and even some of the NDP amendments because we have looked at them sensibly and logically. They make sense and they should be supported.
Look at the government side. Every single amendment that has been proposed will be opposed by government members. It is not because the amendments make no sense. They are all good and sensible amendments that should be discussed. They will opposed because government members are afraid their nomination papers will not be signed when it comes to the next election. I wish they would reconsider and start thinking about what is good for the people of Canada instead of their pocketbooks at the next election.
In the last parliament we told the government that bills like the Employment Equity Act, conditional sentencing and bills that had flaws in them would be challenged by the courts, just like the one before us today. We predicted that but they never listened. I wish they would listen on the Canada Elections Act because that minister over there will be responsible for the waste of hundreds of thousands of dollars on meaningless court cases which he could be avoided. I wish he would listen.