Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in turn to speak to Bill C-9 introduced by the government House leader and entitled an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act.
As my colleague, the member for Verchères—Les-Patriotes, pointed out so well and to avoid being redundant, I will try to raise new points regarding our disappointment following the introduction of this bill.
For the benefit of our viewers and our colleagues in the House, I would simply point out that the Elections Act has to be changed as the result of a decision by the Ontario court of appeal regarding the identification of political parties on the ballots, known as the Figueroa case. In the past, a party had to run 50 candidates in a general election in order to be recognized and, therefore, to have its name appear on the ballot.
The Ontario court of appeal and the legislation before us reduces this number to 12 candidates, which apparently has a direct link with the rule of law used by the Ontario court of appeal. This rule provides that, in order to be recognized in the House, a party must have 12 members there, the figure 12 being an acceptable measure in our system.
That having been said, our disappointment has to do with the fact that nothing in this bill addresses certain points that the Bloc Quebecois members consider essential.
I will try to rise above party politics by saying that I am sure that the issues that I will be raising during the time allotted to me were a problem for members of all five parties in the House during the election held on November 27, 2000.
That is why I think that the government should have taken advantage of this bill, which amends the Canada Elections Act, to introduce improvements in the electoral process.
When people get out to vote, they are doing nothing more or less than practising democracy. I am certain, Mr. Speaker, that the inhabitants of the lovely Cornwall area and of your riding are capable of expressing an opinion on an MP. That is the purpose of an election.
The purpose of an election is to say “Do we agree with the person who has been representing us for the past few years? Do we agree with the person seeking the right to run for office? Do we agree with this party's platform? Do we agree with a whole range of things?”
The action one takes in leaving one's home, setting out in one's car, heading for the polling station and, behind a screen, voting for someone, is an eminently democratic one.
What governs this democracy? In Canada, it is called the Canada Elections Act.
The Bloc Quebecois would have expected the government to take advantage of this bill to amend certain features of the Canada Elections Act.
In any event, we know that, following an election, the chief electoral officer, Mr. Kingsley, will have to meet with members of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to report on his work. Members of the Bloc Quebecois will have certain concerns. In the short time left to me, I want to share just a few of them with the House.
One is that there are no provisions in this bill for more democratic electoral financing.
When we look at the figures released by Elections Canada on party financing, we can see that the six major banks in Canada—which have made record profits in 1999 and 2000—make contributions to election funds. These record profits made by major banks are often accumulated at the expense of ordinary people who experience financial difficulties and who tell themselves “I have financial problems, I can no longer make the payments on my house or on my car”.
When the time comes to pull the plug, the major banks do not hesitate to do so. Nor do they hesitate to pocket billions of dollars in profits.
The parallel I would like to draw with profits is the following. When we look at the contributions made to election funds, whether it is to the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party or the Canadian Alliance Party, we realize that these major banks make generous contributions. This is why, following an election, the government has no interest in changing the rules on public financing in the Elections Act. The government looks at who provides the money to fund an election campaign.
It is not in the government's interest to change the Elections Act. When we look at the figures released by Elections Canada, we realize that major banks have made generous contributions to the old parties, the traditional parties.
We really thought that, when the government introduced a bill to amend the elections act, it would have taken the opportunity to support the notion of funding by ordinary citizens.
We, in the Bloc Quebecois, because of our public financing policy, have had to rely on $2, $5, $10 and $20 donations during the last and all the previous election campaigns. But the day after an election, we are not beholden to any of the multinational companies who contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to our election campaigns. We are funded by ordinary citizens who tell us “We think you are doing a great job. Here is $2 to carry on”. The day after the election, we are beholden only to ordinary citizens.
It would be in the interest of the government to agree to the motion put forward by one of the Bloc members on March 18, 1994. We in the Bloc are very consistent. The hon. member for Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour brought forward Motion No. 150 which said:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should bring in legislation limiting solely to individuals the right to donate to a federal political party, and restricting such donations to a maximum of $5,000 a year.
This is one change we expected to see in the bill.
I know my time is running out; tempus fugit , as would have said my latin teacher at the Séminaire de Chicoutimi.
Second, we expected something about the designation of returning officers. What we want and what the people we represent want is a democratic electoral process that is administered in a more transparent fashion. So, there should not be any apparent conflict of interest in the appointment of election officials.
The returning officer, who is the most important election official in each of our ridings, is appointed on the recommendation of the governor in council. In parliamentary terms, it means that cabinet members, the main players, the prime minister's henchmen, recommend individuals to act as returning officers. In most cases, if we could look closely at the 301 returning officers, if we had time for such an exercise, we could see a clear link to the government party. I think this will be a good exercise for my next filibuster in committee. We will look at the qualifications of the 301 returning officers in Canada.
Right now, they are all Liberal supporters, but I can assure the House that, under the Conservatives—and we saw it in the 1993 election—returning officers were friends of that party. That proves what we, in the Bloc Quebecois, have always said: Liberals, Conservatives, it is all the same. That is very unfortunate.
Why not look at how things are done in the provinces? Quebec could be used as a model. I presume we do not only do bad things in Quebec. In Quebec, returning officers are appointed and confirmed following an open, transparent, competition in which their abilities may be made public, where people may be questioned. They are interviewed by representatives of all the political parties. Why could the appointment of returning officers not be a much more transparent process?
In connection with the NDP motion earlier in the week, the government referred to the Lortie Commission, the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing.
In the report of the Lortie Commission, at page 483, Commissioner Lortie concluded as follows:
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.
We can give examples of attitudes seen in the last election on November 27, 2000. Our memory has not been affected in this regard by the rigours of winter. Our wits are not dulled by temperatures reaching 27 below with the wind chill factor. It may be cold outside, but our heads are clear and we can recall the partisan decisions made by Liberal appointed returning officers in the last election. We could go on listing them until tomorrow morning.
I almost feel like asking for unanimous consent to continue my speech until I have finished listing all the acts or partisan action taken by returning officers in our ridings. There were—and I do not have enough time—the polling stations. In some instances they were located in tiny community centres where six or seven polling divisions were put together and the people were all packed in. They were voting just about beside each other. They could almost see who the person in the next booth was voting for.
Such things are totally unacceptable. Although there was a recreation centre nearby, people were sent five or six kilometres away from their community. I regret to inform hon. members that not everyone owns a car. Then there are the seniors. It was not exactly mid-July weather last November 27, hon. members will recall. There had been freezing rain. It was icy. Seniors were not able to exercise their right to vote.
Examples like these illustrate that there truly was partisanship as far as the returning officers were concerned.
Having spoken of physical locations, I could now go on to the last-minute additions to the voters' lists. At one point, only three days before the election, there were 7,000 or 8,000 new names on the list. These were people that had never been enumerated. No one knew where they came from. You can imagine Mr. Speaker—I hardly need say imagine, for you know, having yourself been elected in a riding—how that can complicate the election machinery to have to add 5,000 to 6,000 names three or four days before voting day.
I could also talk about the voting cards. Elections Canada provided people with a kind of voting card. In buildings with 64 apartments, voter information cards were left in the lobby, just like any ad-bag, newspaper or flyer from Canadian Tire or Pharmaprix. Some people were literally going to every apartment building picking up those cards. I have seen some people with 300 to 400 cards in their possession.
I am sorry, but I still feel very bitter about the last election. Many members on this side of the House, but also on the other side of the House—