Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today on today's opposition day motion. The NDP is asking the House to consider several important aspects of the fair elections act. I welcome the opportunity to participate in this debate and to demonstrate how the fair elections act would strengthen our democracy. I will therefore be opposing the motion and encouraging other members to do the same.
In their motion before the House today, New Democrats ask that three elements of the fair elections act be amended through the end of vouching, the use of voter information cards in place of legitimate identification, and the refocusing of Elections Canada's education function.
I will address each of these provisions of the bill, but they do not exist in isolation. They are pieces of a broader piece of legislation that proposes comprehensive changes to the Canada Elections Act.
The fair elections act would ensure everyday citizens are in charge of democracy by putting special interests on the sidelines and rule breakers out of business. The bill would also make it harder to break elections laws. It would close loopholes to big money, impose new penalties on political impostors who make rogue calls, and empower law enforcement with sharper teeth, a longer reach, and a freer hand.
The fair elections act would protect voters from rogue calls with a mandatory public registry for mass calling, prison time for impersonating elections officials, and increased penalties. It would give more independence to the Commissioner of Elections Canada, allowing him or her control over staff and investigations, empowering that individual to seek tougher penalties for existing electoral offences, and providing more than a dozen new offences to combat big money, rogue calls, and fraudulent voting.
It would ban the use of loans to evade donation rules and would repeal the ban on premature transmission of election results, upholding free speech. It would provide better customer service to voters and would establish an extra day of polling.
In the case of disagreements over election expenses, it would allow MPs to present the disputed case to the courts and have judges quickly rule on it before the CEO would seek the MP's suspension. It would make the rules for fair elections clear, predictable, and easier to follow. Finally, the fair elections act would crack down on voter fraud by prohibiting vouching or voter information cards as acceptable forms of ID.
This last provision, cracking down on voter fraud by eliminating vouching, is an area of disagreement between the government and the NDP. I am not sure why, frankly, because each time someone votes fraudulently, that person cancels out the vote of an honest citizen. How many honest votes would the NDP accept being cancelled? In other words, what cancellation rate does it consider to be acceptable?
This is a vitally important question. It is not just good enough for legitimate voters to say, “As long as I can cast my ballot, why should I care if other illegitimate voters cast theirs?” The reason is that illegitimate votes cancel out legitimate ones. Every time a fraudulent vote is cast, a legitimate vote is not counted.
How seriously, then, should we take the issue of fraudulent voting?
Voter fraud is not a victimless crime. Its victims are legitimate voters who cast a ballot believing that they should have the same voice in the decision as their neighbour, but whose votes are stolen by voter fraud.
The NDP is fond of saying that there is no voter fraud. New Democrats say we have to prove it. They say we cannot point to anyone ever having voted fraudulently, but we have and I will.
The television show Infoman showed that two Montrealers were each able to vote twice. It demonstrated how easy it was to use voter information cards or identity fraud. The case is even documented on Elections Canada's own website, where the individuals in question had to sign compliance agreements.
Although no one condones these actions, the example is illustrative, and it shows just how easy voter fraud can be. The fair elections act would stop fraud of this kind by eliminating the use of inaccurate voter information cards as a replacement for acceptable forms of ID. The statistics on irregularities in the use of vouching and the high rates of inaccuracy in voter information cards are well established. I do not need to repeat them here.
I just want to remind honest, unsuspecting voters that their vote is denied every time a fraudulent vote is cast. In fact, there would be little difference between a fraudulent voter casting a ballot and a legitimate voter being turned away. Why will the NDP not take this threat seriously?
Voter fraud and developing ways to combat it are important, so I would like to focus the remainder of my remarks on another element of the NDP motion: Election Canada's education function.
Just over 20 years ago, in 1993, the Canada Elections Act was amended to give Elections Canada its current mandate to educate Canadians on democracy and to encourage voter participation. What was the budget for this mandate? It was limitless. You heard me, Mr. Speaker: Elections Canada was not given a specific budget for this activity. Instead, it was told to spend whatever it needed, drawing directly from the fiscal framework in order to educate Canadians about democracy, just as long as it reported back to the procedure and House affairs committee after the fact.
How has this approach, without a budgetary limit, been working? What results do we have to show for it? Surely voter turnout must have increased. Surely Canadians must have had an excellent grasp of the basics of voting, including what ID to bring.
Unfortunately, this has not been the case. Canadian voter turnout has plunged in the past two decades, and Canadians cite the lack of information as a reason for not voting.
In 1988, the last general election before Elections Canada had its current education mandate, voter turnout was 75%. In a previous election in 1984, voter turnout was also 75%. In fact, voter turnout in Canada dipped below 70% only twice between the end of World War II and the time when Elections Canada was given its current mandate to voter education. Voter turnout in the last general election was 61%. This is actually an increase of 3% over the previous election in 2008. If that is success, I would hate to see what failure looks like.
The opposition and Elections Canada often point to declining voter turnout around the world as a justification for continuing the current approach to voter education. Now let us examine the statistics a little more closely.
I have just shown the record of declining voter turnout in Canada. Is it a similar story in presidential elections in the U.S.? The 2008 election that made Barack Obama president saw the highest voter participation since 1968. That is worth repeating. It was the highest voter turnout in 2008 in the U.S. since 1968, but in Canada, it was the lowest in our history. That hardly proves that declining voter turnout is a global phenomenon.
Some might suggest that the election was unique and historic, given that it was the first time an African American was a nominee for a major party. If that is the only reason, then what explains the fact that voter turnout in the next presidential election, in 2012, was actually higher than in the election in 2008?
Again, voter turnout in the last two presidential elections in the United States was the highest that it has been since 1968. Not only does this not support the suggestion that decline in voter turnout is a global phenomenon, it absolutely disproves it. Voter turnout in Canada has declined since Elections Canada began its current approach to voter education. The facts prove that.
After the last election, young non-voters reported that not knowing where, at 25%, when, at 26%, or how, at 19%, to vote played a role in their decision not to vote. Half of Canada's youth and three-quarters of aboriginal youth were unaware that they can vote early if they are not available on election day. The same report states:
The most important access barrier
—to youth voting—
was lack of knowledge about the electoral process, including not knowing about different ways to vote...
This is a result of Elections Canada's current approach to voter education: spend, spend, spend, and hope there will be something to show for it. It has not worked.
Young people are not the only ones confused by Elections Canada's ID requirements. In fact, I would like to quote a press release from the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. This press release, incidentally, is still on her party's website. In it, the leader of the Green Party states:
To improve voter turnout, we should repeal all the changes, including the photo ID requirement, that make it harder for young people, First Nations, the poor, and seniors to vote.
That sounds a lot like the motion we are debating today. There is just one problem: no photo ID requirement exists in the current Elections Canada Act, and the fair elections act does not propose it.
Have members heard a media outcry demanding the leader of the Green Party retract this factually inaccurate information? Have they heard the opposition demand that the record be corrected? Of course not, because it plays into a deliberately misleading narrative that critics of the bill are seeking to advance.
Today voters have 39 forms of authorized ID to choose from to prove identity and residence, and government-issued ID, photo or otherwise, is not required. The fair elections act would not change that in any way.
In fact, it is understandable that Canadians are confused about what forms of ID are acceptable in order to vote. After all, if an elected member in this House and the leader of a national party do not know which forms of ID are required and which are not, then how would we expect Canadians to know?
The fair elections act would respond to this by requiring the Chief Electoral Officer to communicate to Canadians the forms of ID that are acceptable in order to vote. That is a change we are proposing to the education function. It is a return to the basics.
If Canadians knew that they could vote using a bank statement and a student card, would they be concerned about the end of vouching?
In my time in the military, one thing we always returned to in training was the fundamentals. The fundamentals absolutely work, and this is something we should absolutely focus on here.
If Canadians knew that they could vote at a long-term care facility using a health card and an attestation of residence, would they be concerned about the end of vouching? I do not think so.
Education is essential, but Elections Canada has not met the grade. It is time that the current approach to education be replaced by a return to the basics.
In conclusion, Canadians must have confidence in the democratic process. Not only do they need to know how to cast a ballot, but Canadians also want to be sure that legitimate votes are not cancelled by illegitimate ones. As I demonstrated today, the fair elections act would go a long way to ensuring that Canadians would have the confidence in the electoral process that they want and deserve.
With the measures to eliminate vouching and communicate the many types of voter identification that are acceptable at the polls, I believe that the risk of voter fraud would be greatly reduced. Together, all of these initiatives would advance the voter identification process significantly from what it was a decade ago.
It is for that reason that I will not be supporting the motion, and, once again, I call upon all members to oppose the motion.