Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak to this motion today. It is absolutely crucial that we examine Bill C-23 properly. Not only is our motion—which calls for public hearings on the matter to be held across Canada—entirely reasonable, but these hearings are absolutely essential in order to better understand our Canadian democracy and improve the Canada Elections Act as much as possible, as it should be.
I am fortunate to be a member of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, the committee we are discussing here today, the one being asked to conduct these consultations. As vice-chair of the committee for a little over a year now, I have had the opportunity to take part in many debates. For instance, at the beginning of this period, the committee was tasked with examining the recommendations of the Chief Electoral Officer. The committee also had to produce a report on what it thought of those recommendations and on the changes that he recommended that the government make to the Canada Elections Act.
After the 2008 election, the Chief Electoral Officer made about 50 recommendations. Some were minor, while others were quite significant. They would have corrected the major problems with the Canada Elections Act. When the matter came before the committee, the process was quite long and a great deal of discussion took place.
However, the tremendous advantage of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs—and one of my colleagues here today can confirm this—is that it is one of the committees that operates most effectively on the Hill. That is my opinion. Most of the time, things are dealt with by consensus and by mutual understanding, and we almost always manage to find common ground that everyone can agree on. That is the advantage of dealing with matters that are usually non-partisan.
As for the recommendations of the Chief Electoral Officer, at the time, I thought we had an excellent discussion. In the end, we were able to produce a report that most committee members agreed on. They found many of the Chief Electoral Officer's recommendations to be worthwhile
We now have before us a bill that we have been waiting for for a very long time. It has been a long time since these changes were requested. It has been a long time since the committee tabled its report. It has been a long time since the NDP, in response to major election fraud issues, had a motion unanimously adopted in the House, outlining the specific changes that needed to be made to the Canada Elections Act as quickly as possible. This is urgent. The Chief Electoral Officer was very clear. These changes must be made as quickly as possible so that they can be implemented in time for the 2015 election.
If we wish to prevent other cases of major fraud, such as the robocalls, and other issues that emerged during the 2011 election, such as voter suppression, then yes, significant changes need to be made as quickly as possible. However, Bill C-23 contains all sorts of measures that come out of left field and do not solve anything. That is a problem.
For example, the Chief Electoral Officer made an excellent recommendation with regard to vouching: election workers should be hired in advance in order to prevent as many problems and administrative errors as possible. Right now, the Chief Electoral Officer does not have that authority. He was therefore asking to be able to hire election workers earlier in the process so that he would have more time to give them the proper training and did not have to hire workers too quickly and at the last minute. This would considerably reduce the number of administrative errors made on election day. Is this measure included in the bill? No. Instead, the government decided to completely eliminate this system, which allowed some groups of people, namely young people, people living in rural areas and others, to vote. This bill will completely deprive them of that right.
It is thus absolutely essential to go and get the opinions of the people who will be most affected by this bill, meaning people with reduced mobility, seniors, members of first nations and students.
I would like to focus on youth and students, because they are very important to me. Last spring, I tabled a motion before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to study voter turnout among young people.
We know this is a major problem because fewer and fewer young people are voting. The numbers are quite alarming. During the 2011 election, the 18 to 24 age group had the lowest turnout by far at 38.8%. That means that barely 38% of young people between the ages of 18 and 24 came out to vote on election day. Those who did vote used the voter card or vouching. Youth voter turnout is currently at a catastrophically low level. What is more, some of those who voted in 2011 would not have been able to if these measures had been in place.
The minister keeps saying that his bill will contribute to improving youth voter turnout. The problem is that this is not 1984 and ignorance is not an asset. Just because the minister says that the bill will improve youth voter turnout does not mean that it will magically be so. The truth is, if the Conservatives were truly interested in improving youth voter turnout, then why would they get rid of the voter card as a form of identification for voting, and why would they get rid of vouching? No other measure has made it easier for young people and students to vote.
To come back to the heart of the motion, if the Conservatives are so convinced of the merits of their measure, if they are so convinced that it will truly help young people vote more, then why would they not consult them? Why would they not go across Canada, meet with the groups most affected and ask them whether they really think that these measures will contribute to improving voter turnout at every election?
When I hear what the Conservatives have to say about how they have no intention of consulting or desire to consult, that tells me they know exactly what they are doing. I think they are perfectly aware that these measures will make it harder for young people to vote. That is their goal. That is what they are trying to achieve.
Consulting—going to see people to ask them what they think about an issue as fundamental as our democracy—is not complicated. It is something committees do all the time.
Two years ago, I participated in a diplomatic mission of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development. I went to Ukraine with an all-party group of MPs to hold public consultations. All day long, people from all over came to talk to us about democracy in Ukraine, about how it works, about what could be improved, about major problems and obstacles to democracy in Ukraine.
We did not stay in Kiev. We went all over, to all the regions. We went to Kharkiv in the east and Lviv in the west. We travelled around. We went to see people. That gave us a complete picture of the reality over there. Had we stayed here in the basement of the Centre Block, had we told the Ukrainians to Skype us and tell us what was going on in their country, I do not think we would have been able to understand the situation as well as we did.
It was an extraordinary opportunity. It is something that Parliament must do, and it is fantastic. Why can we not do the same thing here, in our own country? Why is it so hard to say that this is something very important that needs to be done? We need to go to every region across the country to meet with people and talk to them about the state of our democracy and the proposed changes. We need to ask them what they think and find out what their reality is.
We need to go to downtown Vancouver, where homelessness is an issue. We need to go up north and talk to aboriginal communities. We need to go anywhere where there are major issues. That is not too tall an order if we want to do our best to improve democracy in Canada.
