Mr. Speaker, I am happy to speak today in favour of the amendment put forward by my hon. colleague, the member for Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière.
The member suggests that the committee reviewing any possible electronic voting or voting changes would only seek consultation from the Senate and that the committee of the Senate would not exercise a veto over any proposed changes to the voting.
This is an excellent idea. A similar amendment, which I thought was a good idea, was proposed by members of the Bloc Quebecois in committee. I believe the suggestion was actually an improvement over what was suggested when the bill was being reviewed in committee because it allowed the committee of the Senate to actually provide some guidance.
We can benefit from the wisdom in the Senate. The Senate was originally understood to be, as we all know, a chamber of sober second thought. In fact, this might be sober first thought, as it were, but nonetheless a sober commentary, not an actual veto. I think that is a very profitable thing to do.
However, giving a veto over changes, which is the way the relevant section of the proposed law is currently worded, would give a committee of an unelected chamber actual control under the law of Canada over a part of the election law of the country. I think that is a precedent that has already been set, but it is a slippery slope down which we do not want to continue where unelected people have greater and greater control and those of us who are elected, and therefore those who elect us, are less and less in control of the political agenda. This is particularly true when we are speaking of the actual election law of the land, surely the most sacred of all our democratic institutions.
The suggestion I would make is that the Senate actually would have a valuable role and a Senate committee ought to have a veto over any election law changes if the Senate itself were elected. When the amendment came up at committee meetings, I raised the point that it would be very advantageous if in the future we were to allow for greater control from the Senate if it were ever elected. I know I differ from my colleagues in the Bloc Quebecois and the New Democrats in favouring an elected Senate as opposed to the abolition of it, but there is a valuable role a second elected chamber can play, particularly when it is elected on a different basis from the House of Commons.
Many countries around the world have an elected second chamber. I am thinking here for example of Switzerland, the United States, Australia and Germany which use different systems. We forget sometimes that prior to 1867 the united province of Canada did have an elected second chamber. Perhaps one of the greatest steps backward that occurred at the time of confederation, when so many other good measures were put forward and set in stone, was that we went from an elected to an unelected second chamber.
My colleagues from the Bloc Quebecois are particularly sensitive to the problems of having an unelected body practising a veto over the electoral law because of the fact that Quebec has not that long ago had the experience of having its own unelected second chamber. It was only in the 1960s that a constitutional amendment was passed removing that unelected second chamber in Quebec.
I recently had the experience of going through an old issue of a magazine, I think it was the French version of MacLeans published around 1965, which listed all the then incumbents in Quebec's second chamber. It included the dates members were appointed and their ages. One member on that list had been born in the 1870s, a man practically as old as confederation itself. This was an unelected member sitting in that chamber and serving out his time. As it turned out, he was a very long lived gentleman who had been appointed back in antediluvian times and continued to serve as a member of that chamber. I have no idea of his attendance record or of his mental state but he continued to function and, along with a small group of colleagues, to have the ability to block all the laws of the province of Quebec.
In fact that upper house sometimes did block laws when its own privileges were being attacked. It was very concerned about its own privileges. I do not think we want to see that kind of power, which already exists to some degree in the Senate, in Canada. We do not want to see that kind of power being used by committees over business that relates purely and entirely to this Chamber.
It is very important that we have that distinction as long as this is the only democratic Chamber in the country. As long as the country does not have any form of referendum law, citizen initiative, recall law or any of the basic accoutrements of a democratic society, as found in the more democratic societies of the world, then surely we do not need unelected bodies having direct control over changes that would make this place more democratic and the manner in which members are elected to this Chamber more democratic.
I want to briefly refer to the concept of electronic voting and other types of voting that was suggested in the original text of the bill. That is actually a very valuable provision. We should be considering the possibility of electronic voting for citizens.
When I was seeking election there were a number of people unable to cast ballots because they were ill, incapacitated or out of the country. Proxy voting allows to some extent for this problem to be dealt with, but it is an awkward system. It is possible that it could be improved upon. I know all members would want to see any improvement in access to voting for Canadian citizens to go forward. The idea of having some provision that permits for the potential for electronic voting for Canadians is something that should be encouraged.