François Langlois

[Canada Elections Act, November 25th, 1996]

moved:

Motion No. 24

That Bill C-63 be amended by adding after line 23 on page 33 the following new Clause:

"64. The Act is amended by adding the following after section 301:

301.1 Chapter II of Title III of the Quebec Election Act applies to this Act, with such modifications as the circumstances require."

Motion No. 29

That Bill C-63 be amended by adding after line 27 on page 38 the following new Clause:

"86.1. The Act is amended by adding the following after section 331:

1. (1) Before an amendment to this Act is passed, the Governor in Council shall table a draft Bill in the House of Commons.

(2) Within sixty days after the draft Bill is tabled, the Governor in Council shall consult the recognized political parties in the House of Commons."

Motion No. 30

That Bill C-63, in Clause 87, be amended by deleting lines 5 and 6 on page 39.

Motion No. 31

That Bill C-63, in Clause 88, be amended by replacing lines 5 and 6 on page 40 with the following:

"88. Section 4 of the Referendum Act is replaced by the following:

1. No proclamation may be issued a ) when the House of Commons stands dissolved; or b ) before, or more than forty-five days after, the text of the referendum question has been approved under section 5 or 5.1.

2. Sections 8 and 9 of the Act are repealed."

Motion No. 32

That Bill C-63, in Clause 89, be amended by replacing lines 7 and 8 on page 40 with the following:

"89. The Act is amended by adding the following after section 5:

5.1 (1) A referendum question shall be approved by a majority of the provinces that includes a ) Ontario; b ) Quebec; c ) British Columbia; d ) two or more of the Atlantic provinces that have, according to the then latest general census, combined populations of at least fifty per cent of the population of all the Atlantic provinces; and e ) two or more of the Prairie provinces that have, according to the then latest general census, combined populations of at least fifty per cent of the population of all the Prairie provinces.

(2) In this section,

"Atlantic provinces" means the provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland;

"Prairie provinces" means the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta."

Motion No. 33

That Bill C-63 be amended by adding after line 14 on page 40 the following new Clause:

"91. The Act is amended by adding the following after section 16:

16.1(1) Chapter II of Title III of the Quebec Election Act (financing of political parties) applies to this Act, with such modifications as the circumstances require.

(2) For the purposes of this Act, a reference to "party" in the Quebec Election Act shall be read as a reference to "referendum committee"."

Motion No. 35

That Bill C-63, in Clause 92, be amended by replacing line 28 on page 40 with the following:

"before it are replaced by the following:

1. (1) The Government of Canada shall not give effect to a vote on a referendum question or take any action whatsoever with respect to that vote unless a majority of the legislatures of the provinces have first given their consent, and this majority shall include a ) Ontario; b ) Quebec; c ) British Columbia; d ) two or more of the Atlantic provinces that have, according to the then latest general census, combined populations of at least fifty per cent of the population of all the Atlantic provinces; and e ) two or more of the Prairie provinces that have, according to the then latest general census, combined populations of at least fifty per cent of the population of all the Prairie provinces.

(2) In this section,

"Atlantic provinces" means the provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland;

"Prairie provinces" means the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta."

Motion No. 36

That Bill C-63 be amended by adding after line 28 on page 40 the following new Clause:

"93. The Act is amended by adding the following after section 39:

39.1(1) The provisions of an Act of a legislature respecting a referendum or referendums prevail over any inconsistent provisions in this Act.

(2) Where the result of a referendum held under an Act of a legislature respecting a referendum or referendums differs from the result of a referendum held under this Act, the result obtained under the Act of the legislature shall prevail."

Madam Speaker, since there are eight motions in this group, I will call upon the generosity of my colleagues to speak on items that I will certainly overlook. A little earlier, my colleague from Calgary West gave an interesting and intelligent speech on the concept of distinct society.

If there is one thing we can be sure of when the hon. member for Calgary West addresses a problem, it is that he will ask the real question. There were no false pretence or political dodging when he spoke on the concept of distinct society and on what it could represent.

The first intrinsic notion we refer to when we speak of a distinct society is the one outlined in the 1987 Meech Lake agreement. What was this notion of distinct society? It was a clause that would have been entrenched in the Canadian Constitution affirming the distinct nature of Quebec. This clause in the Constitution would have had precedence over the distribution of powers between the federal government and the provinces. Any interpretation of the Constitution would have taken into account the notion that Quebec is a distinct society.

This has nothing to do with the unfortunate motion mentioned earlier by the hon. member for Berthier-Montcalm and passed by a majority in this House on November 29, 1995, as part of an exercise in wishful thinking on the recognition of distinct society. We see today that even the bill now before us does not reflect the civil law concept of domicile. We must take these things into account.

But the concept of distinct society is everywhere in this group of motions. What do we want to do? First, we want the Canada Elections Act to contain provisions similar to those in the Quebec Elections Act on the financing of political parties to be sure that, at the federal level as in Quebec, only eligible voters can fund political parties. We want to ensure that large and small corporations, unions, and lobby groups can no longer legally fund political parties.

The chief electoral officer of Quebec, Pierre F. Côté, when he appeared before the House Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, had given a clear answer to the hon. member for Calgary West. What is important in Quebec's election bill is to define properly what we want. Shall it be one person one vote, or one buck one vote?

In Quebec, in the last 20 years-it will be 20 years next year-all governments have respected a principle now well established in Quebec's political custom, a principle according which no corporation, union or pressure group can provide funding for a political party. Only an eligible voter can do it, to a maximum of $3,000, according to Quebec's laws.

It took some courage for a newly elected government to undertyake such a reform, in 1977, because it is not easy to organize funding by the population, to go and visit your constituents week after week, to ask them how they judge your performance, to ask them also to support you financially.

The recall procedure, for the Bloc Quebecois as well as other Quebec political parties, is a year-long process because you sound out your constituents quite well when you ask them one by one to contribute $20, $50 or $100, and not $60,000, like the hon. member for Bourassa mentioned earlier.

You would need 600 constituents contributing $100 each to equal a big $60,000 cheque donated by a company. It is much easier. But then debts can be called in. It is a lot more difficult for a political party to say no to someone who donated heavily to its campaign fund than to someone who made more modest contributions. This is the purpose of one of our amendments.

We have moved that amendment to avoid the sort of hurried debates we are having today, where the only consultations there were were made at the last minute and where everyone is running about every which way to see if it would not possible to obtain an eleventh hour concession that could make the bill acceptable and save a few clauses with cosmetic changes, when in fact the whole process was flawed from the start and Elections Canada and the government ventured dangerously close to conflict of interest, if they did not actually have one.

If the amendment we are proposing today had been adopted, the House would get advance notice when the government wants to amend the Elections Act. Political parties should be consulted before the introduction of a bill on election legislation. As I will repeat tomorrow at third reading of Bill C-63, neither the official opposition nor the Reform Party were consulted. It is a partisan bill that will lead to a partisan decision.

We will also propose to amend the referendum legislation, Bill C-110, which gives a veto to almost everybody and which at the time I called a big fat chicken with legs for everybody, so that the veto clearly applies to referendums.

This is to say that before calling a federal referendum, the federal government will have to have the approval of the regions and the provinces, including Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia, two western provinces representing 50 per cent of the population and two Atlantic provinces representing 50 per cent of the popula-

tion. As for the question to be asked, the approval of the provinces will be required.

Second, there will have to be agreement regarding the results. The federal government will not be able to give effect to a vote on a referendum question if any of the groups I mentioned has objected to the question.

Finally, we propose that, if the result of a referendum held under provincial legislation differs from the result of a referendum held under federal legislation, the one held under provincial legislation will prevail, thus demonstrating that it is the provinces that created the federal government and not the reverse, in case this has been forgotten.

My grandfather would puff on his clay pipe and tell me to remember that confederation was the creation of the provinces, that the federal government was not responsible for our existence. Almost everyone in Canada has heard once in his life that the federal government was a creation of the provinces.

We have created a monster of such proportions that it now thinks it created everything, when the reverse is in fact true. It was the provinces that gave birth not to Canada but to the constitutional government that we know today. Contrary to a certain widely held philosophy, Canada was not created in 1867. It existed before that.

It existed when your Acadian ancestors, Madam Speaker, were there, long before the constitutional order of 1867 existed, long before the Europeans arrived. The First Nations were here when Canada came to be. To think that Canada has been in existence only since 1867 or that it will fall apart because of a constitutional reform is to misjudge tradition, the history that forged the soul of this people. It will withstand another constitutional reform.

My colleagues can add to what I have said. I have tried to deal with the eight motions in Group No. 6, which cover the Bloc Quebecois's major amendments. I would again like to congratulate the member for Calgary West for his solid understanding of the problem I am raising concerning distinct society. He is not in agreement with me, and I am not in agreement with him. But at least he is asking the real questions and giving a genuine response, as he sees it, unlike the people across the way, who pretend not to understand the problems. They sidestep the issue, because they are too afraid of what lies beneath the surface.

It is true that distinct society is a term that gives Quebec greater powers, that makes it possible to interpret the Canadian Constitution so that the division of powers provided in sections 91 and 92 of the present Constitution would be set aside and precedence given to an interpretive clause of this sort. In this regard, the hon. member for Calgary West is right.

[Canada Elections Act, November 25th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the official opposition has two motions in Group No. 5, the Reform Party has three. Our first motion, Motion No. 7, is to replace in the election legislation the notion of "résidence ordinaire" or "main residence" by that of "domicile".

We are giving the government the opportunity to flesh out the proposition it made following the referendum held on October 30, 1995. The government passed in this House a resolution to recognize in principle the distinctiveness of Quebec with regard to language, culture and civil law.

With the notion of "domicile", we are addressing the third characteristic of the distinct society of Quebec, since this is a civil law notion. In Quebec, we usually define "domicile" as the place where the voters have hearth and home, that is where they ordinarily reside.

However, the elections legislation does not use this civil law notion. It seems to me that we need to be consistent, here. Since the government took upon itself to recognize the distinctiveness of

Quebec right after the referendum, it could show it in some concrete way.

Since property and civil rights are defined in the British North America Act, 1867 as a provincial area of jurisdiction, pursuant to section 92(13), it would only be reasonable, at least where Quebec is concerned, since it availed itself of these provisions to develop its own Civil Code, that the notion of "domicile" be used as an eligibility requirement for voters, along with their age. Otherwise, we end up with nothing but wishful thinking expressed in November 1995 without any repercussions.

When drafting a bill for two nations that vote under a unique set of rules of law with different civil law principles, we must take into account the Canadian duality between Quebec's civil law and the common law of the English provinces, where the concept of main residence is very important.

Why impose concepts of common law to a province, which has had a civil law tradition since Confederation and even before, since Quebec's civil code, must I add, was approved by the Parliament of a united Canada the year before the federation was born in 1867?

Our civil code goes back to 1866. It was amended several times since, especially concerning matrimonial regimes. There were the great reforms of 1930-31 following the Dorion Report; the 1964 reforms concerning the community of property, where the husband, although he is the administrator of the community, had to have the consent of his spouse to continue administering the community, at least in general; and the 1970 reform of the matrimonial regimes provided for in the civil code.

From then on, the partnership of acquests became the legal regime in the civil code for spouses without a marriage contract. There were also, in the early 1980s, Bill 89, which was passed by the National Assembly, and the Loi sur le patrimoine familial , which was passed in the late 1980s. This new civil code maintains of course the general principles of French law which has always applied in Quebec.

So why would the government impose upon us legislation which is foreign to us under section 92(13)? Why would it force us to accept terms which have no basis in our legal system? The Fathers of Confederation recognized, in 1867, that Quebec was really a distinct society with regard to its civil law. That did not happen in October of November 1995. This duality in terms of civil law was recognized in 1867 in the founding legislation. Our electoral law must respect that.

We do not need an electoral law which uses the same words from coast to coast for the whole Dominion. The Dominion, in terms of civil law, is comprised of nine provinces that have a common law system and one province that has a civil law tradition, each system having its own merits, of course. We will not debate this any further. That was the first motion brought forward by the official opposition.

The second motion is Motion No. 11. It is just a little strange that we should have had to propose this amendment. This provision should have been in the bill from the outset. In fact, MotionsNos. 12 and 13 brought forward by the Reform Party, which are in the same group, essentially call for the same thing, namely that the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada be allowed to use provincial lists.

The same taxpayers pay for the lists of electors in the provinces, where the qualifications of electors are exactly the same, where the basic notions to have the right to vote are exactly the same, the notion of universal suffrage being applied everywhere in Canada. Yet, the bill before us today does not allow the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada to use provincial lists if the enumeration was conducted more than 12 months before the date on which such lists would be used.

In other words, in this connection, the bill could have said that Canada's chief electoral officer is not authorized to use Quebec's list, because the census used to create it was held in September 1995. The census used to create it will run out next May 1, at which time the list will be published, and the list will be as good as possible.

It will therefore be more than 12 months. It is already more than 12 months. The federal government will not be able to use this list, put together at a cost of several million dollars, because the legislator does not wish to recognize the quality of the list drawn up by Quebec's director general of elections. The government does not wish to assume its responsibilities with respect to this work and to legislation that is more forward looking than the federal legislation.

They tell us: "We have not checked the validity of the lists drawn up by Quebec. Quebec's lists are prepared for different polling divisions". These are logistical problems, computer problems.

If Quebec is able to use its permanent list for municipal elections in which the polling divisions are completely different, why is it not possible to use Quebec's provincial list for a federal election in which polling divisions are larger?

Let the computer experts work it out, but as a declaration of principle, I think it obvious that, in the interests of harmony, and also of economy, of the public money for which we are all accountable to our constituents, the broadest possible use of provincial lists should be permitted. I am not speaking only of Quebec's list. It could be Alberta's, or Prince Edward Island's, drawn up with the assistance of Elections Canada on top of that. It is rather strange to see electoral lists drawn up by Elections Canada

excluded from use in a federal election under the pretext that more than 12 months may have gone by.

The correction proposed in Bill C-63 at the committee stage is only a partial one, not allowing the use of the Quebec list of electors. In other words, the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada will not be able to use the Quebec list of electors for the election of 75 members of this House.

I respectfully submit that the Bloc Quebecois amendment and the Reform Party amendment strongly resemble each other. Ours is more binding on the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, in that it requires him to attempt to conclude an agreement with the Director General of Elections of Quebec, whereas the Reform amendment does not go quite as far, requiring the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada to check that the provincial voter's register is adequate. If it is found to be adequate, he ought then to make use of it.

I sense that the hon. member for Calgary West is dying to explain his amendment. I shall therefore yield the floor to him, with your permission, Mr. Speaker.

[Canada Elections Act, November 25th, 1996]

moved:

Motion No. 11

That Bill C-63, in Clause 22, be amended by adding after line 27 on page 10 the following:

"71.011(1) The Chief Electoral Officer shall endeavour to conclude agreements with provinces and territories that maintain permanent lists of electors and the agreements shall provide for the use of such lists by the Chief Electoral Officer.

(2) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, where the Chief Electoral Officer has entered into an agreement under subsection (1) for the use of a permanent list of electors, the Chief Electoral Officer shall, for the purposes of holding an election, use any lists obtained under such an agreement."

[Canada Elections Act, November 25th, 1996]

moved:

Motion No. 7

That Bill C-63, in Clause 6, be amended by replacing line 19 on page 3 with the following:

"she is domiciled and to vote at the"

[Canada Elections Act, November 25th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Calgary West for bringing up the important issue of byelections and especially the period within which these are supposed to be held.

Generally speaking, when we are looking at a byelection, especially from the opposition's point of view, we mainly want to know when it will be called. The government should not wait too long. But the reverse is also true, as the hon. member for Calgary West pointed out. The government should not be able to call a snap election that catches the opposition parties off guard.

We could consider something like a minimum of 90 days after the vacancy occurs, up to a maximum of 180 days, in other words, between three and six months. Actually, in committee, because of the gruelling pace, it was impossible to discuss this aspect. In fact, it was hardly possible to discuss anything at all.

We will probably have a second opportunity, as I pointed out earlier, to look at all these questions, now that everyone has simmered down, and I am referring to voting hours, byelections and establishing a register of electors. Since today is Monday, the beginning of the week, perhaps I may explain what the debate is about, for the benefit of those who were not listening Friday.

We are now talking about shortening the electoral period to 36 days, down from 47. Is anyone opposed to this? Not many people. A few members from large ridings object, but a large majority of members are in favour.

Earlier, we saw that the hon. member for Surrey-White Rock-South Langley did not agree with his colleague from Saanich-Gulf Islands on the subject of voting hours. It would probably be the same in our own caucus. The issue of voting hours came up all of sudden, and now we have to take position on the matter. Perhaps it could be left out of the debate, but there are many other things that should be left out as well.

If we can have an election within a shorter period of time, it is only due to a procedural trick. There would be a pre-election enumeration, probably during the first three weeks of April, so that as soon as the writs were issued, the chief electoral officer would have enough information so he would not have to order a second enumeration but could proceed immediately with revision as necessary.

We agree with the principle, but as we pointed out on Friday, not at this stage, not in the last year of the government's term. None of these last minute changes in the rules of the game. What we would like is one last election with the current rules, which everyone knows, with one last census, which would be held during the election campaign and would be valid for the election of the 37th Parliament.

I raise the point the hon. member for Calgary West raised earlier. There are problems in our system, which can be fairly easily fixed and which cause the powers of the government to be blatantly out of proportion with those of the opposition. Our preference would have been elections on a set date, which probably does not require an amendment either to the Constitution or to the statutes or ordinary legislation.

The Prime Minister could simply announce from his seat at the opening of Parliament that the next general election would be held, say, five years from the last one, unless the government were overturned in the meantime. The current Prime Minister could have said, when the House began sitting in January 1994: "The next election will be on the third Monday of October 1998". Everyone would know the date of the election. Everyone-Liberals, Reform-

ers, Bloc members and others-could prepare for the third week of October 1998. This could have been done through a ministerial statement, without changing provisions of the law and the British North America Act of 1867 and without taking any powers away from the Queen by prohibiting her from dissolving Parliament if she so desires. We all know very well that Her Majesty does not intervene in this sort of thing, except on the recommendation of the government.

This constraint could easily be eliminated. A ministerial statement, rather than a major constitutional change, is all it would take. We would feel much more involved in the process, not to mention the fact that, in the last 18 months of a government's mandate, the opposition keeps wondering when a general election will be called. If we knew the date, we would all be on an equal footing, as has been the case for over 200 years in the United States, where Democrats, Republicans and Reformers all know that, on the first Tuesday of November, they elect all members of the House of Representatives and one third of the Senate every two years, and the president every four years. We could have exactly the same provisions without amending the Constitution. I believe a private member's bill to that effect was introduced and will be reviewed by a committee.

As for the date of a byelection, it goes without saying that there is a danger in putting it off for too long, as is currently possible. The government must, in the six months following a vacancy, announce the date at which a byelection will be held. However, that date does not have to be within the six-month period. We should follow the example of some Canadian provinces. I will take the example of Quebec, since I am more familiar with its legislation. In Quebec, a byelection must be held in the six months that follow a vacancy.

No one is caught by surprise, since the byelection is held within a set timeframe. An exception could be made whereby, in the last year of a government's constitutional mandate, that is to say, between its fourth and fifth year in office, a byelection would not have to be held.

Otherwise, given that the whole process requires a number of months, a member elected in the last year of a mandate might sit for just a few weeks. In fact, should the House adjourn, that member could be elected, sign the roll, be sworn in, and never actually sit in the House.

So, an exception could be made whereby, in the fifth year of a Parliament, a byelection would not be required if one or more seats became vacant. In the other four years, a byelection would have to take place between the 90th and the 190th day following a vacancy. Therefore, we will support Motion No. 6 in Group No. 4, tabled by the hon. member for Calgary West.

[Canada Elections Act, November 25th, 1996]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, but not for reasserting your authority, because it took less than 15 seconds to show that you were still in control.

We made progress in the debate last Friday, and the motion of the hon. member for Beauséjour, which was just agreed to, will enable us to proceed much faster, perhaps even too fast for our taste. As I indicated on Friday, there is something basically reprehensible in rushing through an amendment to the elections act. The members who will take a second look at this bill will, of course, have to take into account the circumstances of its passage.

The substance of the bill may be debated and debatable, but its form is essentially out of bounds because, in my opinion, this debate has been flawed from the start. I will address this point in my remarks at third reading.

As for polling stations' hours of operation, last spring, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs examined various scenarios put forward and explained by Elections Canada before the committee.

Subsequently, this House passed and referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs a bill proposed by the hon. member for Vancouver East and concerning polling hours, Bill C-307. I listened carefully to what the hon. member for Stormont-Dundas and the hon. member for Calgary West said about polling hours. If we look again at Elections Canada's scenarios in the official report, we can see that this proposal does not fit in with any of the scenarios in question.

This is a sui generis proposal that the government came up with and was even forced to amend at report stage, because it was not given enough thought.

Motion No. 21 proposed by the hon. member for Calgary West would extend polling hours, particularly in Alberta and British Columbia. Allowing polling stations to close at 8 p.m. instead of7 p.m. would protect what can be considered the golden hours, that is, the hours during which those who are allowed to vote can do so. This is a very important time of the day, a time when election organizations get people to come out and vote.

Having polling stations close at 7 p.m. in certain regions of the country seems to me to be extremely early. On Friday, the hon. member for Kootenay East stated his views in a very objective fashion on this legislation, which should not be subject to partisanship in any case. It is only because of the government's haste if the debate has now become a partisan exercise, although we, on this side, are trying to remain as objective as possible.

The hon. member for Kootenay East said on Friday that the problem is essentially a matter of perception, since all votes in Canada, whether in St. John's, Newfoundland, or in Langley, British Columbia, carry the same weight. This is true. It is also true that the feeling of alienation felt by many western Canadians is due to the fact that when the media can begin broadcasting the results, the outcome is already decided, regardless of how they vote. Central Canada, in which 176 ridings will be contested in the next election, will probably seal the fate of this whole exercise. The fact remains that all votes are equal, but I can understand the perception

explained by the hon. member for Kootenay East. Therefore, the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Calgary West would help improve the situation.

However, the member for Calgary West goes a lot further. He proposes that section 160 of the Canada Elections Act be amended so that the counting of the ballots would start at the same time everywhere in Canada. Whether in Newfoundland or in British Columbia, the counting of the ballots would begin at the same time, which means that people in Newfoundland would have to wait about an hour and half before starting to count the votes.

In the best of all possible worlds, the proposal by the hon. member for Calgary West that the count take place at the same time would of course be extremely interesting. If people did not have to sleep, eat, go to work the next morning, and so on, having the count at the same time would be a definite advantage.

However, we do not live in the best of all possible worlds. We live in a world where compromises must be made. One such compromise could be to adopt Motion No. 21 of the member for Calgary West, but drop the other motion calling for an amendment to section 160 of the Elections Act, so that the count could take place immediately after polling stations officially close in a given province. This is what the official opposition will be favouring with respect to hours and count.

The official opposition presented its own amendment, Motion No. 22, asking that the four-hour period voters now have in which to vote be maintained. We are essentially proposing that these four hours be maintained, by saying: "employers must ensure that eligible employees are allowed at least four hours". This would be better than giving them only three hours.

It must be borne in mind that, under the government bill, polling stations would close at 7 p.m., Pacific time, and voters would have only three consecutive hours in which to vote. The four hours that have been traditional in Canadian history for years would disappear with this amendment to the Canada Elections Act regarding the number of consecutive hours required and allowed.

I do not think it is a move in the right direction to shorten the period allowed by one hour. It is true that if polling stations in central Canada have to close at 9.30 p.m., it becomes academic whether three or four hours are allowed. But it is with these two extremely important factors in mind, that is, the local time at which polling stations close and the effective period of time people have in which to vote, that the official opposition has presented Motion No. 22, so as to ensure that voters from coast to coast have the benefit of four hours.

This concludes my remarks on the third group of motions.

[Canada Elections Act, November 25th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, until such time as we can have an intelligent debate, I suggest the debate be adjourned at leisure.

[Canada Elections Act, November 25th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the motions in Group No. 3 concerning Bill C-63, an act to amend the Elections Act and the Referendum Act, were considered briefly on Friday.

As agreed, the hon. members for Stormont-Dundas, Calgary West and Kootenay East had the opportunity to speak at that time to help set the debate in context.

Mr. Speaker, I suggest the debate be adjourned at leisure so we have a chance to concentrate on the debate.

[Canada Elections Act, November 22nd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, since I do not wish to be recognized for the purpose of the debate, I am raising a point of order of a very general nature by saying that the Bloc's motion in this third group is motion No. 22, dealing exclusively with opening hours of polls, and more specifically with the period of time employers must give their employees to vote.

If this is agreeable to you, Mr. Speaker, I will discuss this issue at the end, once the chief government whip will have tabled his amendments, and also after the member for Calgary West will have explained the nature of his amendments on a much more general issue, that is the possibility of having variable hours for polls across Canada.

[Canada Elections Act, November 22nd, 1996]

moved:

Motion No. 22

That Bill C-63, in Clause 46.1, be amended by replacing line 31 on page 27 with the following:

"day at an election, have no less than four consecutive"