Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Hamilton Centre for moving this motion today, because I think it is through initiatives like this that we will begin to restore a bit of confidence in our democratic institutions.
It is clear that the Conservative government is not Elections Canada's number one fan. Getting caught with one's hand in the cookie jar, as the Conservatives did in the in and out scandal, is certainly no fun. I think the Conservatives are upset with this independent agency for doing its job diligently and rigorously. In Italian this is called a vendetta.
It is ridiculous. Not so long ago, the solution for the Conservatives might have been simple: punish Elections Canada and ignore the requests for increased power from the people at Elections Canada in order to prevent Elections Canada from seeing the Conservatives getting into the cookie jar with impunity again.
But no. There has been a turn in events and by all accounts, the government will support the NDP motion. The Conservatives are finally listening to reason. That must also be why they have very discreetly dropped their appeal of the guilty verdict in the in and out scandal. I am not celebrating just yet. I will wait and see what happens when the motion is voted on. The 39th, 40th and 41st Parliaments should not go down in history as the parliaments when someone pulled a couple of fast ones on Canadian voters.
What the NDP is asking for is simple, and that is to update the Canada Elections Act so that the Chief Electoral Officer can have the means to check whether a general election or a byelection was held transparently, honestly and ethically. That is all. We want the Chief Electoral Officer to have the power to request all necessary documents from political parties to ensure compliance with the Canada Elections Act. We are also asking that all telecommunication companies that provide voter contact services during a general election register with Elections Canada and that their clients have their identity registered and verified. This will help prevent people who abuse our system from staying in the shadows. That is all.
But why is the NDP moving this motion in the House now, a few weeks the report on the 40th general election was studied? Well, it is because we now have another election controversy.
We have all heard about the robocall scandal and voter suppression tactics. I believe these allegations are serious and legitimate. And since this is also the opinion of the former chief electoral officer, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, I tend to take it seriously. Elections Canada received reports from 31,000 people regarding irregularities during the last election. The NDP wants Elections Canada to investigate. And the tools we want to give Elections Canada will help it get to the bottom of the matter. We are lucky to have an independent body that can objectively assess the electoral process and compliance with the Canada Elections Act.
At present, Elections Canada feels that it does not have adequate audit powers to do its job properly. We want to provide the necessary tools and, above all, the right tools for it to carry out its mandate. And these are the tools that the Chief Electoral Officer, not the opposition parties, is asking for. We want Elections Canada to be able to do its job effectively, under the best possible conditions. That is what the NDP is asking for in a nutshell. Furthermore, Elections Canada's provincial counterparts already have these powers. We really are not trying to reinvent the wheel here; this wheel already exists.
What saddens me most is that the robocall scandal is now being covered by media outside Canada. It has been reported on by the New York Times and the BBC. What must others think of us? Canada is renowned around the world for its solid democracy and is an important player in election monitoring in other countries. The objective of some CIDA development programs is to enhance electoral capacity. It is an almost absurd irony to be preaching about democratic electoral systems when we do not even give ourselves the tools to set a good example at home in Canada.
If the robocall controversy continues to prove to be one of the greatest affronts to the democratic traditions of this country, it will very seriously affect Canada's credibility abroad. Globalization and the increase in trade are fine and dandy, but the flip side to globalization is that information now circulates as freely as goods. What happens in Canada can be heard very clearly in Australia or South Africa.
The Ukrainians are coming to Canada to ask for help in developing and maintaining a democratic system in their country. This week, at the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, while the Ukrainian witnesses described the pitiful state of democracy as it is practised in Kiev, I could not help but think that the Ukrainians were coming to get help from a government that is itself perhaps fraudulent.
If we allow this kind of fraud, we will no longer be in a position to give advice to anyone, and we will no longer be a democratic force in this world. Our credibility abroad is of serious concern to me. To begin with, we lost our seat on the United Nations Security Council, then we withdrew from the Kyoto protocol, an act that was greatly decried by the international community. Then Canada announced that the government intended to use information obtained through torture.
Now, Canada's reputation is being tarnished with allegations of electoral fraud. We would be doing ourselves a huge favour if we gave Elections Canada the tools it needed to do its work properly. We must also take care that the international community does not start to think that we are turning into a corrupt regime. If I have properly understood the Conservative government's position upon reviewing the “Report of the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada on the 40th General Election”, as regards the increased powers the Chief Electoral Officer is asking for, it would be preferable to call on an external auditor to review the books of a political party. One may as well ask the neighbour's wife's cousin's aunt, who is a good pal, to review one's books. It would be a lot simpler.
When Conservative members say that they are co-operating with Elections Canada, and yet refuse to give it increased powers, I wonder what they are trying to hide. This is not a game of catch me if you can, here. If a police officer investigates a bank robbery and does not have the power to question the main suspect—if the police officer cannot properly conduct his investigation—does he have to take the suspect at his word when he claims that nothing happened, and wait for somebody to make a confession?
The NDP motion is timely. Elections Canada must carry out a wide-reaching and in-depth investigation of robocalls and the dirty tricks involved in voter suppression. The motion is even more on the mark regarding the Conservative government's slashing of public funding to political parties. The role of political parties in our democratic system has just shifted. They have been turned into ruthless machines that sometimes use unscrupulous methods to fill their coffers.
La Presse published the story today about a Mr. Duke who was aggressively harassing voters to solicit donations on behalf of the Conservative Party. Dubious tactics continue to be the norm. If the Conservative Party’s tactic is to disgust voters to the point that they will not go and vote and to reduce the turnout rate among people who do not support the party, I will let it take the fall for its actions. It is all very well to engage in marketing efforts to rename the government of Canada the “Harper government”, but the fact is that people around the world will associate this scandal with that very “Harper government”.
Many organizations support the direction the NDP is taking on this: Democracy Watch, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Council of Canadians. The Conservatives have to stop taking Canadians for fools. People want a responsible, open and transparent government. They want a government that represents all Canadians, not just the ones who voted for their party.
I will conclude by saying that there is a very clear movement. I only hope that the Conservative government will not miss the boat, because the voters are going to remember this in 2015.