Mr. Speaker, do you hear the heckle over there? They only used to heckle and slur and look down their noses when one mentioned the Toronto Star, but now even The Globe and Mail gets their scorn. Why? It is because The Globe and Mail understands what is going on. Here is what it is saying: “The [Prime Minister's] government's continued focus on the threat of voter fraud in federal elections is approaching absurdity”. That is what The Globe and Mail says. It continues, “Everyone with any expertise who has examined the question in detail has arrived at the same conclusion: There is no threat”.
Regarding the Neufeld report, which is supposedly giving justification for the bill, Mr. Neufeld is saying that the minister is misinterpreting his report, that it is not what he said. Now The Globe and Mail is coming out saying the same thing. It is a stand-alone sentence: “There is no threat”. The threat is to the Conservatives' majority government. That is the threat. The government is worried that if enough people actually get out and vote this time, it will lose its majority, since we know that over 60% of Canadians who voted did not vote for the Conservatives in the first place. Therefore, the Conservatives are doing everything they can to try to jig the rules so they can overcome the natural unpopularity of their government as a result of its actions and laws.
The quote from the Globe continues: “And yet the government insists that controversial provisions in its proposed Fair Elections Act are needed to eliminate this non-existent terror—even at the risk of disenfranchising thousands of legitimate voters. It makes no sense”.
This has to stop. Virtually everyone is saying that the bill is anything but fair, that it threatens our democracy and the ability of Canadians to express their political will in the next election. Also, people around the world are saying that Canada's watering down of its democracy is going to hurt emerging democracies elsewhere in the world.
This is a very bad bill. This is an unfair law. Kill the bill.