Mr. Speaker, this motion is all about the struggle for the vote.
I think it is important for this place to be reminded that it was not until 1918 that women could finally vote in a federal election. I would like to credit Alberta's own Nellie McClung for her strong efforts across the country to ensure that women could exercise their suffrage at the provincial, local, and federal level.
It was not until 1960 that Canada's first nation peoples were allowed to vote with no strings attached and without giving up their aboriginal rights.
However, as many in this place have mentioned, there has been broad concern across Canada over the decrease in voter turnout. Therefore, the last thing we would expect the government of the day to do is to put measures in place that would put further barriers in place, making it difficult for people to exercise their franchise.
An open, fair, and inclusive electoral system is the foundation of a modern democracy. The right to vote is now enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is not a minor matter. Jean-Pierre Kingsley has been quoted as saying, “Canada's electoral system is often mentioned as an international model for both its fairness and effectiveness”.
Because of our reputation for having a credible electoral system, Canadians have been invited to serve as election monitors in elections around the world, recently, in Ukraine. I had the privilege, in 2012, of attending in Ukraine to help monitor its election. Other members attended again last December, and we are going to be welcoming those invitations again.
I had the privilege in the last week to travel with colleagues from this place to two African countries, Mozambique and Madagascar. These are lesser developed nations that have gone through war and suffered extreme poverty. Yet, they have established electoral commissions and are bending over backwards to educate the populace and get them enumerated to enable them to vote. However, here we are moving in reverse.
We should perhaps be shamefaced going overseas, professing to have expertise in the democratic electoral process, when the current Conservative government is moving to a more regressive version. We might have to have election monitors here, to engage and encourage us on how we can make our process more democratic.
Today we have a motion put forward by the member for Toronto—Danforth, which says, in part:
That, in the opinion of the House, proposed changes to the Elections Act that would prohibit vouching, voter education programming by Elections Canada, and the use of voter cards as identification...
The concern is that first-time voters would be disenfranchised, including youth and new Canadians, aboriginal Canadians, and our seniors living in residence.
I wish to speak to the process deployed in the passage of these proposed election laws.
Reforms have been long awaited. Many times, the ministers of the government of the time stood in their places and said that any day they were going to table an election law, but then they would withdraw it. We have been waiting for quite some time. Everyone agrees in this place that we do need some reform to the law going forward to the next election, which will be within a year or year and a half. It is important that we have enough time to get these laws in place and that Elections Canada be ready for them.
The question is, why now the rush, having waited so long to bring forward changes?
The Conservatives have brought the bill forward with no consultation with Elections Canada, which is in breach of past protocols. It is also a breach of the past protocol to not consult all the parties. Again, in my visit to these developing African nations, those governments have reached out to their opposition members. What kind of example is the Conservative government setting? Why the need to fast-track Bill C-23?
A reasonable request was made to have the bill immediately go to committee so that more substantial amendments could be made. We had the public calling for more time to consult, and there have been calls by our party to take this bill across Canada to hear from Canadians, all of which has been denied.
Despite the significant issues identified, we are rushing the bill through. We plea once again with the government to apply some common sense, dignity, and democratic process to the reform of the most critical law in our nation, the right to exercise one's franchise.
I would like to speak to a couple of issues under the bill that are raised in the motion. One issue is the proposed prohibition of vouching and any reliance on voter ID cards.
As has been mentioned by many of my colleagues, in the past there has been some level of reliance on vouching. Why is that? It is because there are some members of our society who simply do not have readily available identification. In my riding of Edmonton—Strathcona, within the city of Edmonton and province of Alberta, it is well known across the country and by the government of the day who brag regularly about the work that has been created in Alberta. It suggests that people should move to Alberta. There are jobs, and it welcomes people from other countries to work in Alberta, in many cases in the oil sands.
As a result, we have an incredibly mobile population. In going door to door in three successive elections, I can attest to the fact that many people had just moved in. They had moved across the city, relocated, had no mail with their address, no licence with their new address, and so on. At household after household, we were giving out information on how people could be enumerated. It would be a very serious problem if we took away the voter ID cards, and particularly if we also took away the vouching.
I can also attest to the serious concerns expressed by university students in my riding. I am privileged to have three university campuses in my riding, and there is an additional campus across the river in another riding. I have received letters, from the students' unions from MacEwan University, University of Alberta, and King's University. Those students' unions were all voicing deep concern about the removal of the opportunity for vouching. Why? In many circumstances, as many have attested, students share a residence and only one name will be on the lease or on the bills that come to the house. They have no way of proving their place of residence.
I can attest that I personally have seen young students coming to vote in my riding who have been turned away. Parents have arrived with them, and they are still turned away. In other cases, students have been misinformed and told they must vote in the town they come from, that they cannot vote where they go to university. We need to move in the direction of enabling our youth to vote, not discouraging them.
Second is the category of first nation peoples. In my city, there are many first nation people who, sadly, are displaced, homeless, even though the city is trying to address that. There are wonderful services, including the Boyle Street society, which at the time of an election come forward to assist homeless people. They vouch for them to enable them to vote. They have personally expressed deep sadness to me, that by banning vouching for the people who are trying to exercise their rights, they are going to be banned from that opportunity.
Additionally, as I am sure is the case for all members of this place, there are many seniors residences and long-term care institutions in my riding. We were told by the operators of these institutes that on many occasions they have had to vouch for the residents so that they could vote.
The obvious question is, why is the government moving to disenfranchise these voters? We have not heard one credible or rational argument for this. We should be encouraging people to vote. We heard the government trying to defend that this practice has to be undone because Mr. Neufeld, who was commissioned by Elections Canada to advise on reviewing the act, said there was fraud and that vouching needed to be removed. He has since clearly stated that at no time did he suggest that ineligible voters have deliberately tried to cast illegal ballots. The only other information provided by the minister to the House was information that misled the House and has since been withdrawn. We still await the rationale for disenfranchising over 100,000 voters.
Finally, on voter education, the public, many experts, and certainly my colleagues, are stunned that the government is choosing to diminish the powers and mandate of the Chief Electoral Officer and his officers to educate and encourage the public to vote.
My final point is that I am absolutely dismayed at the decision to deny the strongest recommendation from Mr. Mayrand, which was to give him the powers of investigation to compel evidence. There can only be two reasons for this, both of which are reprehensible.
One is that the government is intentionally blocking the ability of Elections Canada to enforce the act. The second is that it simply does not understand the enforcement system.