Mr. Speaker, I would like to start this morning by thanking my grade 2 social studies teacher, Mrs. Rose Klein. It was many election cycles ago when I was in her class, which is where I first learned about elections. I could not have imagined that one day I would be standing here on the floor of the House of Commons debating a bill to make changes to the Canada Elections Act. That certainly speaks to the importance of having positive role models in one's life.
Bill C-25 is an act to make certain amendments to the Canada Elections Act. I think we can all agree that the integrity of the electoral process is fundamental to our democracy. While many Canadians may watch politics on TV and may talk politics over coffee, I think it is fair to say that for the vast majority of Canadians, their most important and meaningful contribution to the democratic process is to actually go down to the polling station on election day and mark an X by the name of the candidate of their choice. Therefore, it is important that we as lawmakers get this right.
Of particular concern in recent years are the disruptive activities of a group calling itself the longest ballot committee. Quite simply, it is a group of troublemakers who seek to disrupt the electoral process by recruiting large numbers of frivolous candidates who then flood Elections Canada offices with paperwork. As a result, ridings targeted by the longest ballot committee have, as the name implies, unmanageably long ballots, up to a metre in length in some cases. In last year's general election in the riding of Carleton, and in several by-elections in previous years, nearly 100 candidates appeared on the ballot. This has led to excessively long paper ballots and a great deal of frustration among voters and Elections Canada workers. In fact, Elections Canada actually had to change the format of the ballot to be write-in ballots for a by-election last year and another by-election last week, because of the disruptive activities of the longest ballot committee.
Last fall, the procedure and House affairs committee studied this matter in depth, and I was pleased to see the broad consensus among MPs from all parties to fix this problem. In fact, one of the recommendations of the committee's final report was for the government to introduce legislation to close some of the loopholes in the Canada Elections Act that were being exploited by the longest ballot committee. That legislation has come to the House of Commons in the form of Bill C-25, which we are debating here today.
I would like to go through a few of the report's recommendations in detail and share my thoughts about the potential effectiveness of curtailing the disruptive activities of the longest ballot committee.
The first recommendation relates to collecting signatures for a candidate's nomination papers. Right now, in order to run for a seat in the House of Commons, a candidate's paperwork must include the signatures of 100 eligible voters in the candidate's riding. However, there is presently no rule against a person signing the nomination papers of more than one candidate. There is also no rule against people signing the papers before the candidate's name has been filled in at the top. What the longest ballot committee was doing was getting people to sign the papers of many different candidates while the candidate's name was still left blank. This made it easier for it to recruit frivolous candidates whose only intention was to disrupt the electoral process. Bill C-25 closes this loophole by allowing people to sign the nomination papers of one candidate only. While I do not believe this will solve the problem completely, it will constrain the ability of the longest ballot committee to get frivolous candidates on the ballot.
Another matter that received considerable attention at the procedure and House affairs committee was the official agents for candidates. The Canada Elections Act requires that each candidate have an official agent, but there is nothing stopping one person from serving as the official agent for multiple candidates in the same riding.
I know that everyone enjoys a good sports analogy, so I will relay to the House that some of the witnesses at committee said that allowing one person to serve as the official agent for multiple candidates in the same riding was like the coach being allowed to coach multiple teams in the same league. That is certainly a violation of the spirit of the law, given that elections are inherently competitive processes. I am glad to see that particular recommendation has made its way into Bill C-25 as well.
However, I would again caution members from believing that this would completely solve the problem. Indeed, in last week's by-election in Terrebonne, which was one of the ridings targeted by the longest ballot committee, the longest ballot committee did have unique official agents for almost all of the candidates. If I could make a prediction about the effectiveness of unique official agents in future elections, it would seem that instead of the longest ballot committee recruiting, say, 100 frivolous candidates, they would have to settle for recruiting 50 frivolous candidates and 50 frivolous official agents, which is no doubt a significant improvement, but probably not enough to dissuade the longest ballot committee from interfering with future elections. In summary, I think that the official recommendations in the committee's report and their inclusion in Bill C-25 is a positive step to curtail the activities of the longest ballot committee.
I would be surprised if it solved the problem completely. Therefore, I would like to take this opportunity to highlight one of the other ideas that witnesses discussed at committee but was not included in the official recommendations in the final report, namely the reinstatement of mandatory monetary deposits by the candidates. For context, it used to be that a $1,000 deposit was required when a candidate registered to run in an election in this country. In 2017, this requirement was ruled unconstitutional after a court challenge by the same people behind the longest ballot committee. It was this court case that opened the door for the longest ballot committee and their current practice of running large numbers of frivolous candidates, all at no cost to themselves.
I would also like to mention that while the judge's ruling indicated that a $1,000 deposit was an unreasonable infringement of section 3 of the charter, the ruling left open the possibility of a deposit of a smaller, less burdensome amount. It is also worth noting that in last week's by-election in Terrebonne and in last year's by-election in Battle River—Crowfoot, many of the longest ballot committee candidates did not receive a single vote. They could not convince a single person to vote for them, nor could they be bothered to show up to vote for themselves.
Therefore, my personal view and my personal suggestion is that if the measures included in Bill C-25 are not sufficient to curtail the activities of the longest ballot committee, then the next step should be to revisit the idea of a very nominal deposit and the requirement of receiving a very nominal number of votes on election day. Doing so would cause frivolous candidates to think twice before reaching into their wallets, while at the same time respecting the charter rights of non-frivolous candidates. Hopefully it does not come to that.
I am hopeful that the measures introduced in Bill C-25 will be sufficient. I look forward to supporting this bill going to committee and having it studied in further detail. In summary, I will be pleased to vote for this bill at second reading. I look forward to any questions.