Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in this place on behalf of the good people of Davenport in the great city of Toronto to participate in the debate on Bill C-50.
It is important to the people in my riding. Many people in Davenport, in fact many people in Toronto, go back and forth between Canada and their home countries, the countries in which they were born. Many of my constituents live in both places and care deeply about Canada and the electoral process. They are Canadian citizens, yet from time to time over the course of one's life, end up living elsewhere for a period of time.
We already know from the various accounts that we have heard in this place how difficult it is for many immigrant Canadians to receive government services, to access Service Canada, for example, and how difficult and tricky that is for many in our community. We now are seeing another example of how the government erodes the trust of Canadian citizens who are immigrants or Canadian citizens living abroad. This bill is part of a long litany in a grand narrative, the result of which is a deepening lack of trust.
There is also a very adversarial relationship between the government and expert opinion of society and court rulings. In fact, the government has no hesitation in spending money, the dollars of hard-working Canadians, to fight court challenges and to thumb its nose on what Canadian jurisprudence would lead us to.
In this one I am referring to Superior Court Justice Michael Penny who made it clear that long-term expats who cared deeply about Canada should have the right to vote. The federal government, though, did not withdraw its appeal of the Frank judgment when it tabled Bill C-50, even though it wrote its press release and backgrounder on Bill C-50 to make it appear as if it was accepting the Frank judgment.
We have a bill, and it is important that Canadians understand that parliamentarians have been attempting to deal with this issue in a manner that reflects the values of Canadian society, which is that if an individual is a citizen in Canada, regardless of where they live, they have the right to vote.
The government will say, as it did in earlier debates around its unfair elections act, that it is making things simpler and streamlining the system. In fact, we know that is not the case. One would think that when we are faced with the reality of plummeting voting rates in liberal democracies, including Canada, that we would, as parliamentarians, be thinking about ways in which we help facilitate and invite Canadian citizens to participate more fully in the electoral process. However, we are seeing the government, once again, going in the opposite direction, to the extent that organizations have raised serious concerns about this legislation.
Dylan Penner from the Council of Canadians said, “Bill C-50 is a blatant abuse of power. The current government is trying to legislate its way around a court decision it doesn't like”, and we have heard that one before, “to further stack the deck in its favour for the next election”, and we have heard that one before too. He goes on to say, “Rather than accept a court ruling that restores voting rights, the government has decided to change the law in a way that infringes voting rights”.
I would like to add that I will be splitting my time with the member for Gatineau.
I would also like to quote from the organization Leadnow, which asked the Prime Minister and the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to commit to respecting section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees all Canadian citizens the right to vote. It reads:
Any further attempt by this government and future governments to overturn the recent court ruling that reaffirms that right will be considered an affront to the democratic rights of all Canadians.
In a sense, that gets to the crux of the issue here.
This is part of a long narrative by the Conservative government in pushing the envelope around democratic rights and freedoms, of obfuscating in and outside this place regarding its intentions. There have been countless inquiries. There have been police inquiries into voter fraud.
In short, Canadians do not trust the government.
We heard earlier this morning from the former minister of foreign affairs about the importance of this place, of the centrality of this place to preserving democracy in Canada. Yet time and time again we see a government that is willing to play fast and loose with the rules, in the hope that Canadians who are struggling just to get by in their day-to-day lives will not notice as the government starts stacking the deck in its favour. This legislation is just an example. We have not heard any compelling evidence or arguments from the government that that is not the case, and here I am talking about the grand narrative.
Over 2.8 million Canadians live abroad. These are Canadian citizens who pay about $6 billion in Canadian taxes. We need to be thinking of ways to include them more easily in our electoral process. That is a project that any government would think important and vital, but that is not what we see here. It is important that we get to some of the nuts and bolts of how these things play out. We have the legislation, but parliamentarians need to hear how these bills would affect people living their day-to-day lives.
Bill C-50 proposes to give Canadian citizens only five weeks before an election to complete the process. The citizen must send in the form and Elections Canada has to mail out a special ballot. The citizen then has to mail that ballot back. As one Canadian abroad put it when consulted on the impact of Bill C-50, “With international postal delays being what they are, expats have to use FedEx or other courier services to have any hope of their vote being counted”.
Elections Canada is not legally mandated to do the same. In other words, if Elections Canada sends the ballot by surface mail, voters outside of North America are going to have a difficult time. Even just the timing of this is going to be difficult. One would think that the government would take these issues into consideration, but what do we expect from a government that is seeking to tear down bit by bit our own postal service. I suppose that is what we get.
This legislation is of deep concern to our party. We have a solution in Bill C-575 put forward by the member for Halifax. I would urge the government to look seriously at that legislation.