Debates of Nov. 6th, 2006

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, if Question No. 92 could be made an order for return, this return would be tabled immediately.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Question No. 92

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

With regards to band council elections: (a) for each calendar year since the Corbière Decision came into effect, how many bands have had an election and what were the costs of those elections; (b) what plans does the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development have to request an extension of the financial authority from the Treasury Board to continue funding these additional costs for band elections; (c) what is the average cost of a band council election relative to the overall Band Support Funding for First Nations; (d) how many elections have been disputed since 1999 and what were the costs for each of those elections; (e) for those disputed elections, what was the percentage cost of the election as a portion of Band Support Funding and as a portion of own source revenue for the First Nation involved; (f) what studies or audits have been conducted to see how much of the annual two percent funding cap on Indian and Northern Affairs Canada program spending since 1995 has gone to pay for the increased costs of band council elections; (g) how much would Band Support Funding need to increase to cover the increased costs of the Corbière Decision without impacting other program spending; (h) how will the government live up to its fiduciary responsibility for First Nations if the two percent spending cap remains in place; and (i) how will the Honour of the Crown be protected in this matter?

(Return tabled)

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all remaining questions be allowed to stand.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Fisheries and Oceans

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

The Chair has a notice of a request for an emergency debate from the hon. member for Scarborough—Rouge River. I will hear the hon. member now.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to move for an emergency debate under Standing Order 52. The matter of the emergency requiring debate is the report from credible Canadian and other scientists in the journal Science that all the fish species in our planet's oceans will be dead, or collapsed or extirpated within some 41 years. Not since the last ice ages or the meteor strike, which we believe extinguished the dinosaurs, has this planet faced a threat, but this threat is wholly man-made and we know it is impossible to stop our man-made degradations on a dime.

No one is the owner or custodian of our oceans. If we do not begin to act now, right now, the rate of species collapse will accelerate and may be unstoppable, like a row of collapsing dominoes.

It took us a decade to develop the Kyoto protocol, and we are not finished with it yet. If one is a Canadian 20 years of age, this eventuality, predicted by these scientists, will change the world as we know it. There is no justification for delay in responding.

This is an emergency. We must talk now. We must act now. If we do not, here in this place, then where else on this planet? In our country, with coasts on three oceans, this is the place and this is the time. We must begin to act now.

Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

I thank the hon. member for Scarborough—Rouge River for his submissions on this important matter. He has also sent me some information in respect of the application.

While I have no doubt the matter is of considerable importance, I am not sure that it meets the exigencies of the Standing Order at this time. Accordingly I am going to decline his request for an emergency debate, despite his capable arguments.

Bill C-303--Early Learning and Child Care Act--Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

I am now prepared to rule on the point of order raised by the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the government House leader and Minister for Democratic Reform concerning the requirement for a royal recommendation for Bill C-303, the early learning and child care act, standing in the name of the hon. member for Victoria.

I would like to thank the hon. parliamentary secretary for raising this matter as well as the hon. member for Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord and the hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh for their comments.

In his remarks, the parliamentary secretary pointed out that clause 5 of the bill gave the Minister of Finance the authority to make transfer payments to the provinces, provided that the criteria and conditions set out in clauses 5 and 6 had been met. He asserted that the making of transfer payments in this way would require the expenditure of public funds in a manner and for a purpose not currently authorized.

As hon. members know, funds may only be appropriated by Parliament for purposes covered by a royal recommendation, as explicitly stated in Standing Order 79(1). Proposed legislation seeking either authority for new spending or for the use of approved funds for distinctly new purposes must be accompanied by a new royal recommendation.

Having reviewed Bill C-303, I am in agreement that the provisions in clauses 5 and 6 of the bill, which relate to the making of transfer payments according to the specified criteria and conditions, require a royal recommendation.

The hon. parliamentary secretary also raised the question of whether Bill C-303 breaches the rules of the House because it is dealing with an issue that has already been decided. He made reference to provisions of the Budget Implementation Act, 2006 by which, in his view, this House had dealt with the issue of funding for early learning and child care.

The principle that the same question cannot be raised twice during the same session is a well-established part of our practice. I refer hon. members to House of Commons Procedure and Practice, pages 476 and 477.

However, the fact that the House cannot consider the same question or two very similar questions in a single session should not be interpreted to mean that the same general policy area cannot form the basis of more than one debate. Provided that separate and distinct proposals are put to the House, the issue of funding for early learning and child care may be debated again in the House.

In conclusion, I concur with the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the government House leader that Bill C-303 provides for the making of transfer payments by the minister in a manner not currently approved. The bill, therefore, infringes upon the financial initiatives of the Crown.

In its present form, I will decline to put the question on third reading of this bill unless a royal recommendation is received. The debate is currently on the motion for second reading. This motion shall be put to a vote at the close of the second reading debate.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-16, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act, be read the third time and passed.

Canada Elections Act

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform has five minutes left in the time allotted for questions and comments consequent on his speech.

The hon. President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to ask a question of my colleague from Regina about some of the timings of the elections in the last number of years. As the House knows, there were a number of elections that were called on very short order. The one I remember most fondly is the 2000 election, where only three years into a five year term the government of the day called a snap election and at a time when many of the other parties were not prepared or ready to have an election.

Could the member tell us how Bill C-16 addresses some of the concerns that were generated from that snap election call?

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, at the outset of my presentation, I said I knew all members would listen with rapt attention to my comments, but I did not realize the questions would be gift wrapped like that.

The hon. member is absolutely correct. There have been several occasions, not only the one in 2000, to which my hon. colleague refers, over the past two decades where incumbent governments, whether they be federal or provincial, have called elections well before the traditional four year election cycle. Why? They have done it for purely political partisan reasons. Perhaps the polls seemed to indicate that they would be in a better position to win an election if an election were called at that particular point in time.

This is the reason why we have introduced Bill C-16, to put an end to the practices of previous governments that used their ability to call an election for their own purposes. In other words, for their own competitive advantages.

Canadians do not want to see that. It is not fair. It is certainly not transparent. It impedes both the business of government and the ability of the democratic electorate to fairly judge elections at a four year cycle.

I would suggest that not only will this bill put an end to those unsavoury practices. It will finally, after over one century of doing things the wrong way, correct the record and will finally put our country on an even keel with some of the more progressive countries that have already adopted fixed election dates.

[Chuck Strahl, Conservative, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and Minister for the Canadian Wheat Board]

Mr. Speaker, would the hon. member elaborate a little on his answer? He has that some other countries have fixed election dates. The Liberals used to believe in fixed elections, but that was a different thing.

Fixed election dates are important and not only in other countries. My home province of British Columbia has a fixed election date. We have already had the first election. No one lit his or her hair on fire and it was not the end of the British parliamentary system. There was no chaos in the street. It was, however, something that all parties could plan on, that the population could work around and municipalities could tell what was coming. All in all, it worked very well. I know some other provinces have fixed election dates.

Perhaps the member would like to talk about some examples of where it has worked and worked well.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Mr. Speaker, very briefly, the Minister of Agriculture is quite correct. The province of British Columbia as well as the province of Ontario have enacted fixed date election practices in their provinces.

When we were examining this bill, we called, as a witness, the deputy chief electoral officer from British Columbia to give her experiences and whether she felt that this was a practice the province of British Columbia would continue.

I am here to testify that she absolutely had nothing bad to say about fixed election dates and how they reacted or how they performed in British Columbia. She felt that most citizens approved of it. In her opinion, election turnout went up because of it. All the election processes with which her department had to comply, in other words finding office space, finding DROs and all the other election officials, were so much easier to do under a fixed election date process.

There was absolutely nothing bad in the opinion of the deputy chief electoral officer of British Columbia. I think we will find the same reaction across Canada when we finally enact this legislation.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand in the House once again and support a bill that has been a long time coming, a bill for which I think the Canadian public has generally been asking.

Canada's new government has brought forward this legislation today to set election dates at the federal level in Canada. This would mean that Canadians would know the date of the next federal election. It would be scheduled four years from the previous election date.

With Bill C-16, the Conservative Party is taking action and implementing another one of its promises, another one of the planks of the last general election.

We promised to change the way government does business. We promised to bring accountability to the ways we govern ourselves. We pledged to improve on our democratic system wherever possible. Bill C-16 would do exactly that.

This bill is in the third reading stage, the final stage of debate in the House at this time. All parties have spoken in favour of the bill. It has not been amended since being introduced by the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform. He spoke eloquently about the bill at second reading and has told us what it would do. He brought the House up to speed earlier today on the progress and on what this bill would accomplish.

Why does Canada need Bill C-16?

Over the past six years, since I was first elected, I have been a member of the official opposition and I have seen elections, and how they were called or not called, at the convenience of two Liberal prime ministers. We have seen the power to call elections abused in provincial jurisdictions, as well. It is frustrating for elected officials and for voters.

Bill C-16 proposes to improve our democracy by addressing the downside of our parliamentary system that allows the prime minister the exclusive authority to call an election, sometimes a snap election.

What would Bill C-16 do and what are its attributes?

Bill C-16 is modelled on British Columbia and Ontario laws requiring fixed election dates every four years, except when a government loses the confidence of the House, in which case, an election would be held immediately and the subsequent election would follow four years after that. This would improve governance as I believe it would result in higher voter turnout rates and it would assist in attracting qualified candidates to public life because Bill C-16 would bring some predictability and stability to our electoral process.

Voters would get excited and they would gear up for the election date knowing that it was coming at a certain time. New candidates would be able to decide whether or not to throw their hat in the ring because they could decide if they are able to prepare for a certain date in the future.

With this bill, Elections Canada would no longer need to be election ready every year all year long. It would not need to be prepared to go at the whim of a prime minister who decides to call a snap election. Taxpayers would save money because they would not need to pay to keep Elections Canada at the ready all the time.

Fixed election dates would help all political parties. It is not that it would only help the government or just help the opposition. It would help all parties as they would have equal opportunities to make preparation for the upcoming election campaign.

Today we have a situation where the governing party has a remarkable advantage of knowing when the next election will take place. In fact, it may know several months in advance. It may have plans that would be well before the time that we would normally see an election call but it will have looked at the polls and it will be able to make, as the parliamentary secretary mentioned, a decision based on what would be to its advantage. This is not fair.

Bill C-16 says that the next election will be on Monday, October 19, 2009. That is the date unless, in this minority Parliament, the opposition would decide that the government has lost the confidence of the House.

I think an October election would be the best possible time here in Canada. The weather in October is optimal for an election. We could prevent having an election over Christmastime like the last election. We would not be abandoning our holidays in the prime of the summer months to engage in campaign activities, to work those long hours pounding the pavement and knocking on doors to find that most people are not at home.

This would give the candidates and the parties the opportunity to ensure the public was informed of the policies and that they knew the people and the parties that were running in their local constituencies. I believe voters would appreciate that.

Bill C-16 would ensure that constitutional requirements are respected. The bill does not in any way change the requirement that the government must maintain the confidence of the House. Monday, October 19 is the date that is most likely to maximize voter turnout and it is least likely to conflict with cultural or religious holidays or with elections in other jurisdictions.

Bill C-16 even offers an alternative election date in the event of a conflict with a date of religious or cultural significance, or an election being held in another province. This would allow a bit of flexibility. Bill C-16 would empower the Chief Electoral Officer to recommend an alternate polling day to the governor in council should he or she find that a polling day was not suitable for that purpose. The alternate day would be either the Tuesday or the Monday following the election date as stipulated in the bill.

How does Bill C-16 work? Under Bill C-16, the prime minister would retain the prerogative to advise dissolution to allow for situations when the government has lost the confidence of the House of Commons. This is a fundamental principle in a democracy. Currently, it is the prerogative of the prime minister, having lost the confidence of the House, to select what he or she regards as an opportune time for an election to renew the government's mandate and to advise the Governor General to dissolve the House in time for that election.

Under the new system proposed in the bill, federal elections would be held on a fixed date. This would not affect the right of the prime minister to advise dissolution at any time prior to the stipulated date. In a case like what we have right now, in a minority government, that would not mean that the House would sit right up until 2009. If the opposition were to decide that it was time, the Governor General would be called and the election would take place. Canadians would have the right to choose.

Let us look again at the key advantages of a fixed election date.

The first advantage would be fairness. I think it is unfair that the governing party should be permitted to time an election to exploit conditions favourable to only its re-election, especially when it is not listening to the people and is not recognizing the people but looking at itself in the polls. It realizes what it wants to bring somewhere down the road as far as policy and it has an advantage over every other party. This bill would bring fairness back to this democratic system.

The other point I would like to make relates to transparency and predictability. Fixed election dates would provide transparency as to when general elections would be held. Rather than decisions about election dates being made behind closed doors just with the cabinet and the prime minister, general election dates would be public knowledge.

On October 19 everyone would have the opportunity to build on that minority government or to work for their local candidate. It would allow more people to get involved in the electoral process. I think this is something that has been frustrating all members of Parliament. They realize that we are seeing a detach, especially among our younger Canadians. When we look at the statistics and voter turnout, we recognize that one of the demographics that is quite often very low in voter turnout is our young, eligible voters.

I really believe that this would give a sense of certainty so that we could engage people, university students, high school students, college students, to get involved in the process.

I look around this House of Commons and see, especially on this Conservative side, many young Canadians, and even our Speaker sitting in the chair. I am not certain how old he was when the good people of his constituency elected him, but with this type of election date, we will see young people come forward knowing the election date, knowing the policies they want brought forward, being able to get in touch with their member of Parliament or even deciding to run themselves. We would applaud having the issues of young Canadians brought forward.

I commend you, Mr. Speaker, in your youth, for the great degree of experience that you have shown and also for the way you represent your constituents.

Transparency and predictability would also mean improved governance. A fixed election date would allow for better policy planning. Knowing that It would be facing an election four years down the road, the government may decide to have long term policies and to build on those policies so that Canadians could have a sense of stability and of knowing exactly in which direction the government is going.

For example, members of Parliament would also be able to work their committee structure. They could set out their own agendas well in advance, which would make the work of committees and Parliament as a whole more efficient.

As the chair of the foreign affairs and international development committee, one of the frustrations that we had was that there were a number of reports where the committee in the past Parliament did an amazing amount of work on different issues and then we had an election call, a snap election, an early election, and those reports were not finished.

We now have a new Parliament. As a new committee, we come back to this place and we see all the work that the previous committee had done, but we have new committee members. They say that they are not ready to sign on to a report until they have heard from the witnesses who were before the former committee and until they have done their due diligence. They want to go back over all this. We see so much duplication. We see this in all committees as we come up to speed on what the past Parliament did and then decide whether or not we want to sign on to this report, engage in another study or perhaps even scrap a report.

A lot of the business that is done at committees and in Parliament sits on a shelf because snap elections were called and policy was not completed. The ideas were never put to the government or laid on the table here in the House of Commons. Having fixed election dates certainly would improve governance.

I believe this legislation would bring about higher voter turnout rates. We have looked at a number of countries around the world. We have been encouraged when we have seen new struggling states and new countries go into a democracy. We have had a tremendous election in Afghanistan, an election in Iraq and elections in other places where perhaps democracy has been tried for the first time. We are amazed when in some of those jurisdictions the voter turnout is higher than it is here in Canada.

I think a lot of people are not attached to the system any longer, and they are pushing back and asking, “What is the use?” Holding elections in October, other than when a government loses the confidence of the House, I believe would improve voter turnout.

Bill C-16 takes the element of political manipulation out of our federal electoral system. In my view, only the natural governing party, as the Liberal Party of Canada likes to think of itself, could object to Bill C-16.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I would agree with the member that Canadians would generally like fixed term elections. Throughout the last election I heard a lot of people in my riding say that they would like fixed term elections.

A problem could arise because of the type of democracy we have where there can be a minority government and there can be a vote of non-confidence and there can be circumstances beyond anybody's control, but perhaps with goodwill we could limit the times that that happened. It could even be enacted that there would be very limited circumstances where a motion or a bill could be declared to be one of confidence, and the confidence would be limited to a specific vote of non-confidence of the House. That would limit the ability of the governing side to force an unwanted election if it wanted to go to an election prior to the fixed date. That is something we should consider and work on for the long term.

My other concern is that we end up with a system that is a bit like the U.S. system and others where there are protracted electoral campaigns. One of the beauties of the Canadian system is that the election campaign is of a rather short period, with the exception of the last one because it straddled the Christmas and New Year's holiday period which created a rather long campaign. Canadians noticed and commented on it.

A 36 or 40 day campaign seems to be what we like in Canada. If we get to a period where we know what the date is, and we get into an extended one year unofficial campaign and a 36 day official campaign, that could be a risk.

I wonder if the member would care to comment on those points.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have news for the House. I am already campaigning and I am sure the member is as well. As members of Parliament even this past weekend we were around our constituencies trying to do as much as we could.

When we talk about prolonged campaigns, in some ways we would still be set to that period of time of 36 days or however many days it would be before the election date, because we have caps for financing elections. We have caps on what we are allowed to spend. Regarding some of the questions he asked about a prolonged campaign for months on end, we would not be able to do that if it meant we were going to be running campaign material. All that would have to be accounted for in what we submit to Elections Canada as the dollars spent.

Many members of Parliament are door knocking on weekends right now. That is positive. That type of prolonged campaign is good, to be out where the people can hear and see us, and they can come up and talk to us.

This weekend, for example, one of the events that I was at was in Donalda. There is a tremendous museum in Donalda and a fundraiser was held there. As we went around, it felt like campaign time again. People were coming up. They were excited about what was going on. Some were concerned about some of the things that were happening around the country. Many of them were asking questions about the leadership race in Alberta. It felt like a campaign. As members of Parliament we always have to keep that in the back of our minds, that we are always in a campaign.

As far as the other point on prolonged campaigns is concerned, there are a number of countries that have a degree of flexibility with it. They have set election dates, but they also have some flexibility. We could come up with ideas that if this House were to lose confidence in the government, we would go to the polls.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, what the member fails to recognize is that it is possible, before the writ is dropped, that campaign-type activities and financing be done by riding associations.

While he is right that as members of Parliament we should always be out consulting, and we are, there are people who would wish to challenge us. I do not think I am going to get in by acclamation. It could create a situation where spending is done outside of the regular election period spending that is overseen by the Chief Electoral Officer, by people who are challenging or by incumbents, through their riding associations that would be officious, not quite official, not part of a campaign, but that looked very much like a campaign.

We see that a lot south of the border. We see political action groups and all those other things that, while we do not permit them in Canada, they could be disguised and they could be leading to year-long or multi-year campaigns, preparing the way for the day that the writ is dropped.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to my colleague, I do not foresee that as a major problem. I understand what he is saying and I think it could lead to problems where there would be an extraordinary amount of money being spent, but certainly, when different groups come forward, we call that freedom of the press, they could be pushing governments or members of Parliament with policy ideas, encouraging them to accept this.

Doing a campaign, I think, is very much a positive. Engaging Canadians, making sure that they are more aware of the frustrations of all groups around, those campaigns are going on right now even as we speak. I see that as a positive.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.