Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate on Bill C-9, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act.
To begin with, we will be supporting this legislation. We will be doing so because it is consistent with the Figueroa decision handed down in Ontario. It ensures that we conform to the spirit of this decision. I will say, however, that we are not happy to be giving the bill our support, and I will explain why.
First of all, when one looks at the actual bill and reads it, it is clear that it is very brief. It contains only a few clauses. At first blush, it might appear that this is really a relatively minor or superficial bill. It is true that, in terms of content, it is brief. It will not go down in history for its length.
While the bill may seem fairly minor and innocuous, what is troubling to say the least is the government's attitude.
I believe that, by its very nature and by its very content, this bill reflects the arrogant and cynical attitude of this government, which feels that it embodies truth and innate knowledge.
We have before us today a bill which is evidence of all the haste with which the Elections Act reform was carried out during the last parliament. We proceeded precipitously. And why did we? Because the government waited until halfway through its mandate to bring in the amendments it intended to make to the Elections Act. The government was planning, anticipating, a rush election. It wanted to move as quickly as possible to pass new legislation, so that the chief electoral officer would have the time—we are talking six months or so—to implement the provisions of the new legislation before the election was called.
The fact is that, indeed, the provisions of the election legislation rushed through in 1999-2000, if I am not mistaken, took effect at the very beginning of September 2000, so the government was in a position to call a snap election.
Speaking of haste, this bill is an illustration, a proof of the haste with which the government moved during the last parliament in order to get the Elections Act changed, with its bill number 2, Bill C-2.
First, Bill C-9, which is before the House today, contains provisions intended to ensure linguistic concordance, since it appears that the Elections Act, under which the most recent federal elections were held, contained linguistic concordance problems. In other words, some provisions did not say exactly the same thing in English and in French.
Had the government taken the time to properly study Bill C-2 and not rushed it through, perhaps we would have had the time to catch these little language errors and prevent them from having any effect during an election campaign on the interpretation of the law.
Happily—of course the matter is not over yet—it appears that the problems of interpretation in linguistic terms did not cause any catastrophes in the last election.
I will give an example. In the bill before us, clauses 18 and 19 are two provisions intended to bring the French text into line with the original English text with respect to the rules governing the allocation of free broadcasting time and the purchase of air time during the election campaign. The period during which air time is available to the political parties and candidates is defined as the period between the time the election was called and polling day. In French, the text reads “jusqu'à minuit le jour du scrutin”.
On closer examination of the English, we find “At midnight on the day before polling day”. They just forgot to say “À minuit, la veille du jour du scrutin”. That makes a fair difference. It is not a minor error. It is a detail, which could have made all the difference during the latest election campaign, in some ridings, even across Canada.
Here is another example. Clause 4 of Bill C-9 talks of the provisions concerning information to be contained in the register of electors.
It states that it shall contain:
—any other information that is provided under subsections 49(2), 194(7), 195(7), 223(2), 233(2) and 251(3).
It was simply not noticed that, in Bill C-2, the reference was to subsection 195(7) and not, as it was passed in the last parliament, to subsection 195(3). The wrong subsection was amended. The reference is to the wrong subsection. This is another example of haste and sloppy work.
Another example is when the bill refers to generally accepted accounting principles, concepts that the Bloc Quebecois incorporated in Bill C-2, by the way.
As for the generally accepted accounting principles in clause 21, the government simply forgot to include these provisions in subparagraphs 403( b )(i) and (ii). Could this have made a difference? Of course it could have. This is another example of how Bill C-2 was rushed through, without the time being taken to do a proper job.
Why? Simply to satisfy the partisan goals of the government. This is completely and utterly unacceptable.
I was talking about party politics. Is there anything more vital to democracy than an electoral bill? It seems to me that such a bill must be acceptable to most if not all political parties taking part in the process. Everyone must agree with the process if it is to be accepted by civil society in general.
But, as I said earlier, in the reform of the Canada Elections Act during the last parliament, the government's approach was to brazenly put party politics and its political interests ahead of seeking a consensus with opposition parties.
We have seen this in several regards. The government's reform of the Canada Elections Act is essentially cosmetic and superficial. Naturally, it has been amended to be more readable and logical. Of course, some changes were made to comply with previous rulings.
This reminds me of the comment made earlier by the hon. member for Edmonton North, who said that this government is much more reactive than proactive. It is true. We proposed all sorts of ideas during the review of Bill C-2 to amend the Elections Act, so as to make it better for our fellow citizens and so that it would reflect more democratic and modern electoral procedures. But, as I just said, the government decided instead to make only some minor cosmetic changes.
Bill C-2 was not the result of a consensus. It was rammed down our throat by the government. Yet, when he launched the consultation process, the government House leader, the minister responsible for Canada's electoral reform, had said “I want to ensure that we can co-operate with federal political parties—as has traditionally been the case in Canada—so that this bill will reflect a consensus”. Which consensus did this bill reflect? None. The government alone voted in favour of Bill C-2.
I would even go further. The government was so determined to ram this bill through and muzzle the opposition that it went so far as to see that, at third reading, only the government's spokesperson and one representative of the official opposition were allowed to speak to the bill.
Is there anything more despicable than to see the cornerstone of democracy, the elections act of a country, debated at third reading in the House, at the final stage, by only two political parties out of the five represented here in parliament?
The government's behaviour during consideration of Bill C-2 was absolutely outrageous.
The government pushed that bill through so fast that it had to come back to the House and say “Well, there are some minor changes we need to do, typos we need to correct. Would you be kind enough to let us correct these mistakes?”
The government is using the Figueroa ruling, which basically compels us to amend the elections act, to introduce a whole series of tiny minor changes, without of course embarking on an in depth reform of the legislation.
The government is saying “The system has served us well, let it be. We have been re-elected three times under the current election system, with three great majorities, do not change a thing”.
Is this not the party led by the same man who promised, as Leader of the Opposition, that the first thing he would do as Prime Minister would be to include proportional representation into the system?
Well, he was elected and all he had managed to do by the end of his second term was to introduce some slight cosmetic changes to the Canadian election system, because the system has served him well and has worked to his advantage. The government is far from willing to propose any significant amendments to the current election legislation.
Let me briefly go over some of the provisions found in this bill. Among others, the bill amends the Canada Elections Act to give a greater role to the Senate. Previously, if he wanted to carry out a pilot project, for example to test an electronic voting process, the chief electoral officer had to obtain, under Bill C-2, the approval of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, that deals with electoral matters.
Believe it or not, under Bill C-9, the one before us today, not only will the approval of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs be required, but also the approval of the Senate committee that normally considers electoral matters. It takes some nerve to give to a committee made up of unelected parliamentarians the power to say to the Cyou chief electoral officer, “No, you cannot carry out a study on a new way for people to exercise their right to vote in an election”, or “Yes, you can go ahead, under this or that condition”.
Is it not ironic to call upon a committee made up of unelected parliamentarians to debate the Canada Elections Act, which concerns each and everyone of us as representatives of our constituents? This is somewhat embarrassing.
The main purpose of Bill C-9 is to enable a political party that has at least 12 candidates to have its name listed on the ballots along with the name of its candidates. Members will remember that the number of candidates required used to be 50. This bill would reduce the number to 12.
Obviously the Figueroa decision does not specify the number of candidates that would be acceptable in constitutional terms.
So the government proposed the number 12. The rational argument, the logic behind this government proposal, is this. It takes 12 MPs in the House for a party to become a recognized political party. Let us use the same figure for recognition of a political party on the ballot, even if the number of 50 candidates on a slate is still valid for the party to be able to take advantage of the tax benefits offered by the Government of Canada. That said, from now on, the number of candidates required before the party name would be given on the ballot would be 12.
Hon. members might well ask “Why 12? Why not two, five, or ten?” The government, of course, says “Yes, but a rational argument is required, and the rational argument is the rule whereby it takes 12 members in the House for a party to become a recognized political party”.
During the briefing session, a most interesting point was raised by a colleague from the Canadian Alliance. He asked “And what if Prince Edward Island wanted to try an experiment like the Bloc Quebecois did?” There are only six ridings on P.E.I., so how could one imagine the Bloc P.E.I. on the ballet? It would not be possible with only six ridings.
I imagine that this will give rise to a lot of debate on the matter, but I find it unfortunate that the government did not want to take advantage of the work done on the previous bill, Bill C-2, or of consideration of this one, Bill C-9, in order to make more substantial amendments to the Elections Act.
On Tuesday, we debated the possibility of striking a special all-party committee to examine the merits of various models of proportional representation and other electoral reforms. The government clearly indicated its lack of interest.
Let us not be surprised afterward when the people of Quebec and of Canada show even less interest in federal politics, having seen the lack of interest the government has in bringing in any reform whatsoever. Let us not be surprised that the voter turnout is constantly dropping, constantly waning, election after election, when we have a government with such a closed mind and such arrogance toward the public.