Debates of Feb. 7th, 2014

Democratic Reform

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Minister of State (Democratic Reform)]

Mr. Speaker, clause 7 amends section 18, which has absolutely nothing to do with the reporting of allegations of wrongdoing. Section 18 deals with advertising.

The last time I checked, Elections Canada does not combat or report allegations by purchasing advertising. It reports allegations to the House of Commons, something that is not only allowed under the fair elections act but will continue to be required of it.

Furthermore, the CEO will still have the legal ability to report any allegations to the chief investigator, who is the Commissioner of Canada Elections.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, let us be clear. Under the government's law, the Chief Electoral Officer's scrum outside committee yesterday would now be illegal. That is ridiculous.

Potential voters with no fixed address or government-issued ID will now find it harder to vote. First nations, young people, and lower income Canadians will be hurt. Elections Canada is banned from doing public outreach aimed at encouraging more people to vote. Why are the Conservatives using changes to the elections act to make it harder for people to vote?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Minister of State (Democratic Reform)]

Mr. Speaker, in fact, we are making it easier to vote by giving them an extra voting day and allowing resources to reduce congestion at the polls so that voting is faster for Canadians.

Furthermore, we are requiring Elections Canada to communicate to people the basics of voting, where, when, and what ID to bring, and to inform disabled people of the special tools available to help them vote. All of the data show that these are the main obstacles to voting. We are going to remove these obstacles by focusing Elections Canada's advertising on the basics of voting and providing better customer service to voters.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the new bill allows local election campaign organizations to collect money from donors who have contributed at least $20 in the past without that counting as an election expense. However, this clause is impossible to apply because Elections Canada does not keep a list of donors who have contributed between $20 and $200.

What makes the Conservatives think that they will be able to enforce this clause of the bill?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Minister of State (Democratic Reform)]

Mr. Speaker, the limits in question in the bill seek to limit the amount of money spent on election campaigns and not the amount of money spent on fundraising in the first place. That is a reasonable change. In fact, that same rule applied during the Liberal Party leadership race. This is not new. It will be clearly indicated in the law.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the minister is not very convincing.

The reality is that the exemption clause favours the Conservative Party. The former chief electoral officer is against this measure. He maintains that this is a roundabout way of raising the limit on election spending. Obviously, this measure was introduced after a number of Conservative members and ministers were found guilty of exceeding the spending limit.

Does the Conservative government realize that this measure is leaving the door wide open to abuse?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Minister of State (Democratic Reform)]

Quite the contrary, Mr. Speaker, the former electoral officer in fact gave the bill an overall A minus, which is pretty good, I think.

The bill will actually now go to committee after the vote next week, at which point, we can work hard with the former CEO, many expert witnesses, and all parliamentarians to turn that A minus into an A plus.

The Budget

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the IMF predicts that Canada's economic growth rate will be lower than the combined growth rate of the G7 in the next four years.

The last time this happened for four consecutive years was under the Mulroney Conservatives. The IMF also says that the government has some flexibility in how it makes investments if it really wants to improve the economy. Given all the challenges facing the middle class, will this government really table a budget that contains no new investments?

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, if the member opposite had actually taken the time to read the report, he would have seen that the IMF speaks strongly of Canada's economic performance. As the report clearly states, “...the IMF expects growth to accelerate above potential in 2014”. Furthermore, the IMF praised our government's economic and fiscal management. In fact, it said, “Executive directors commended the authorities for their continued sound macroeconomic and financial sector management”.

Clearly, our plan is working. In fact, just today, Statistics Canada announced that another 29,400 net new jobs were created in January.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we know that the government created a big deficit and is now obsessed with eliminating it. However, middle-class households are struggling right now. In fact, household debt has increased 75% in the eight years the government has been in power. It is now almost 100% of GDP. Families owe $1.64 for every $1 they earn.

In light of this, is the government really planning to table a budget that would do nothing for middle-class families?

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, we clearly do not want Canadians to be over-extended. We have cautioned Canadians repeatedly that interest rates are now at an all-time low and will inevitably increase. Our priority is ensuring that Canadians can make informed financial decisions. Unlike the Liberals, who have voted against every piece of consumer protection legislation our government has introduced, we have taken concrete action to help Canadians better manage their money.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we know that this government is obsessed with eliminating the huge deficit that it itself created. However, middle-class families are still struggling under the Conservatives. Household debt has gone up 75% in the eight long years under the Conservative government. The national debt is almost 100% of our GDP and families owe $1.64 for every dollar they earn. Why is this government planning another budget that will do nothing for middle-class families?

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, Canada has the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio of any G7 country by far.

As I mentioned, we have taken concrete action to help Canadians better manage their money. We introduced credit card reforms to ensure that Canadians have access to important information. We strengthened mortgage rules to protect Canadians buying a home. We cut taxes and created the tax-free savings account, the most successful savings account in Canadian history. Over 9 million Canadians now take advantage of it. To encourage Canadians to save for their future, we created a financial literacy leader to oversee our progress.

It is about time the Liberals get on side and support our successful policies.

Democratic Reform

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Minister of State for Democratic Reform bizarrely claimed that giving the unelected and undemocratic Senate a veto over electronic voting was “...the best way to ensure the integrity of our electoral system.”

Why does the minister think that the Senate, which was created before the invention of the telephone and is exempt from ever facing voters, should have a veto on electronic voting?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Minister of State (Democratic Reform)]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP was not even able to run an electronic voting system for a thousand delegates at its convention. It shut down the entire convention for three or four hours. If that were to happen in a national election, imagine what kind of national crisis we would have.

The change in the fair elections act is to require that the CEO of Elections Canada at least secures the support of Parliament before he experiments with risky new methods of voting.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Senate does not even believe in having television in its own house.

Instead of giving the democratically elected House of Commons the ability to decide if an e-voting pilot project is worthwhile, the Minister of State for Democratic Reformhas handed a veto to the unelected, undemocratic Senate.

It is not as if Elections Canada would be able to unilaterally change how voting works. That is a power the minister reserves for himself.

Why is the minister hell bent on giving this veto power to the unelected, undemocratic Senate?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Minister of State (Democratic Reform)]

Mr. Speaker, I commend the member to read the Canada Elections Act.

In fact, the pilot project provision in the existing act allows the CEO to experiment with different methods of voting after consulting only the parliamentary committees responsible for that, which include, under the status quo, the Senate committee responsible for it. So there is already a Senate committee that oversees it.

What I am proposing in the fair elections act is that before the CEO experiments with risky methods of voting, we at least allow parliamentarians to consider whether those methods are safe.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative majority in the unelected, unaccountable Senate has no legitimate role to play in deciding how MPs are elected.

The Minister of State for Democratic Reform has made a number of bizarre claims in recent days, including implying that voter participation has declined because of efforts by Elections Canada to educate the public.

Does the minister have any evidence to support this claim, or does he really not understand the difference between coincidence and causality?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Minister of State (Democratic Reform)]

Mr. Speaker, I am the only who has actually presented any data on the question at all.

First of all, I presented the fact that since Elections Canada started its promotional campaigns, the voter turnout has plummeted by roughly 15 percentage points. Among youth, between 1984 and 2000 it dropped by 20 percentage points.

When we look at Elections Canada's own data, the principle reasons why Canadians do not vote are practical ones. They either do not have time or they are out of town, and many of them do not know of the many different opportunities they have to cast a ballot before elections day.

The fair elections act would require Elections Canada to give this basic information to voters so they have an opportunity to cast their ballots.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of State for Democratic Reform said that the decline in voter participation, which has fallen from 75% to 61% over the past few years, is due to Elections Canada advertising. That is the faulty logic he used to justify taking away Elections Canada's right to advertise.

Can he prove that Elections Canada ads prevented people from going to the polls?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Minister of State (Democratic Reform)]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP has provided no evidence that Elections Canada ad campaigns work. Where is their data? They have not shown us anything to prove that.

I have demonstrated through the publicly available facts that not only are the publicity campaigns of Elections Canada failing, but also that one of the reasons why Canadians are not voting is that they do not have the basic information on how they can vote, for example, in advance ballots. We would require that Elections Canada focus its advertising on those important matters.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think the minister understands the difference between correlation and causation, but that is not the only thing the minister is confused about.

Under this bill, the Commissioner of Canada Elections will have to answer to the Director of Public Prosecutions, who is appointed by none other than the Attorney General of Canada, who is a government minister.

Why not set it up so that the investigative branch is accountable to the legislative branch, not the executive?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Minister of State (Democratic Reform)]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP obviously does not know how the Director of Public Prosecutions is named.

First of all, there is a committee that has representation from every single recognized party in the House of Commons, including the NDP. Then there are two independent, non-partisan public servants from the public safety department and justice department. They all recommend names, which are ultimately approved by a committee of Parliament.

Furthermore, the Director of Public Prosecutions can only be fired by a vote of Parliament, which, incidentally, is the same method that applies to all officers of Parliament.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, despite what the Minister of State for Democratic Reform would have us believe, the power to compel witnesses to appear does exist in our system. Parliamentary committees and even the Competition Bureau have this right.

Why does the minister not think it is necessary to give the Commissioner of Canada Elections this power?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Minister of State (Democratic Reform)]

Mr. Speaker, even police officers investigating the most reprehensible crimes do not have the power the hon. member is referring to. Even for violent crimes, police officers do not have this power.

The commissioner already has the same investigative powers as police officers and the RCMP, and we are giving the commissioner additional powers by prohibiting people from obstructing investigations and lying to investigators.