Mr. Speaker, to begin, I would like to say that I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague, the member for Victoria. I would like to take this opportunity to say that it is an honour and a pleasure for me to share my time with a member who is so active, eloquent and involved.
Unfortunately, I often have to say that my democracy is suffering. The electoral “deform” bill that we are discussing today, which was concocted by the Conservatives, is another step in the Conservative government's slow destruction of our democratic institutions.
Allow me to provide a bit of context so that people can understand what is happening. Ever since the Conservatives won a majority of the seats in Parliament—and I would like to emphasize that is a majority of seats—which they achieved in our parliamentary system without having the support of the majority of Canadians, they have been attacking the institution of Parliament itself by imposing a record number of gag orders. It is fairly ironic that we are discussing a fair elections act under another gag order. That is what is happening with a bill that is so important that, according to British tradition, it must be developed and passed by an all-party consensus. Even knowing that, the Conservative government has the nerve to limit debate. It is unbelievable.
In the past, we have also seen the government prorogue Parliament in an abusive manner. We know that the Conservatives refuse to work with the opposition parties, even though—it is important to remember— they represent the majority of the population. We know that the government has attacked our officers of Parliament and that it recently attacked the Supreme Court itself. The Conservatives will stop at nothing. The government has also muzzled public servants, scientists and civil society organizations. The Conservatives have fought tooth and nail against anyone who dares to have an opinion different from their own.
Incidentally, Elections Canada is among the institutions that have been attacked by the Conservatives. We saw it again this morning with all the accusations and innuendo the minister responsible for the election “deform” bill hurled against Elections Canada.
The bill, as proposed, was another of these attacks. What it all boils down to is an attack against Canadians and their right to vote. In my opinion, this attack is a logical extension of the robocalls, which sought to prevent people from voting, given that the Conservative database was the source of those calls.
Fortunately, these same Conservatives pulled back on some particularly problematic aspects of the bill because of pressure that we, the NDP, put on them and because of the exceptional work by my colleagues from Toronto—Danforth, Louis-Saint-Laurent and Hamilton Centre. It is extremely important to mention that it is also thanks to and very likely because of all the Canadians who stood up and to everyone who spoke up, wrote in and signed petitions to oppose the Conservative scheme.
As an aside, there were a lot of constituents from the Laurier—Sainte-Marie riding who spoke up and took action. I would like to thank them today and salute their commitment and determination. I would also like to say that, as always, it is a great privilege for me to be their voice in this House.
Together, we managed to make the Conservatives backtrack on some important issues.
In particular, they backed down on vouching to enable voting and on polling supervisors. With their bill, the Conservatives were trying to politicize the polling supervisor appointment process even more. It makes me wonder who would benefit from that.
Obviously, the entire bill was designed to benefit the Conservatives. For example, in the case of fundraising campaigns, more and more contributions were going to be allowed to fly under the radar, if I can put it that way, and not be taken into account. That would have increased the power of money even further in the context of elections. There was a victory there, too. Together, Canadians and their spokespersons in the opposition, the NDP, managed to make the government backtrack on that.
We made a few gains with respect to educating the public to encourage people to vote, which is an extremely important issue in Canada, as it is in many countries around the world.
We managed to make these gains, which is a good thing, but there are still a lot of major problems, unfortunately. I could talk about many issues remaining in the bill, but what concerns me in particular is the powers of the Chief Electoral Officer. As I said, we made small gains in public education, but they are small. There is a big difference between what is in the bill before us today and what the Chief Electoral Officer used to be able to do. Now, he will basically be able to promote voting to students in elementary and secondary schools. I do not have anything against that. That is very good, but why not promote voting to college and university students, who are of voting age and will vote in the next election? That makes absolutely no sense. Why would the Chief Electoral Officer not be able to encourage young people who are able to vote to do so? That is quite something.
In addition, the Chief Electoral Officer will not be allowed to partner with other groups to raise awareness and promote voting. He will not be allowed to partner with groups such as Apathy is Boring, an extraordinary group that I know well because I had the opportunity to meet with the founders of the movement. This group does an outstanding job with young people between 18 and 25 years of age. However, game over, they can no longer work together.
That is rather ironic, because it means that, under the new provisions, Elections Canada will have to cancel Canada's Democracy Week, which it used to organize. Once again, that speaks for itself. In effect, Canada's Democracy Week will be cancelled because the Conservatives do not like it. That is quite something.
The Chief Electoral Officer will also need the approval of the Treasury Board to hire technical experts. I just love that. Picture a party in power that committed a bit of electoral fraud—of course, I am not referring to anyone in particular. The Chief Electoral Officer needs technical advice to investigate the situation, and a Treasury Board minister, a member of the party in power, can deny the request. That is totally absurd.
The government is limiting the Chief Electoral Officer's existing powers and, at the same time, is refusing to grant him the new powers he needs to do his work, such as the ability to request financial documents from political parties or to compel witnesses to appear.
We were able to fight back and prevent some of the damage, but there is still work to do. I cannot vote in favour of this bill.