David Christopherson

[Business of Supply, March 24th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to join in the debate.

Watching this bill has been an interesting journey. Given the way the Conservatives are ramming it through, I suspect that it will get a lot more attention in the historical sense than it will any proper consideration by the House or committee.

It has been interesting to watch the hon. minister rise, from the first day, and hold up the Neufeld report as his shield. When the bill was first introduced in the House, for every question that came up that had to do with vouching, the minister would stand and talk about the Neufeld report. That was the answer to everything. He had the magical answer in the Neufeld report, and that was going to give the legitimacy he was looking for to bring in the changes to vouching, which we know, and the experts know, would deny people the right to vote, more than 100,000 people at least. We also know that this is the whole purpose, because the vast majority of people who would be vouching, the government has determined, and they may indeed be right, would likely not vote for the Conservatives.

Voter suppression is not exactly something that captures everyone's attention. Anyone who pays attention to what is going on in politics south of Canada knows about voter suppression techniques. When the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that one of its laws was no longer in effect, suddenly a lot of the states that had been holding back on some of their voter suppression techniques had those bills, within 24 hours, back in the house to be passed for the sole purpose of suppressing the vote.

What did Mr. Neufeld have to say about the hon. minister holding up his report as justification for denying the use of voter identification cards? He said, and I quote:

I think any fair-minded person who reads that report would come to the conclusion that [the minister] has not been fair in his assessment of my findings.

I thought it was interesting that he used the word “fair” twice in its proper context, as opposed to this bill, which is anything but fair.

With the minister's main support mechanism shattered and in shreds, the government also has a lot more people than just the official opposition saying that this is a huge problem and that this is less than people expect from the democratic country of Canada. This matters so much in terms of what happens in Canada's democracy that a group of international scholars got together and wrote a joint letter. One would wonder why anyone outside Canada would care much about a Canadian election, other than as a point of interest. It matters because Canada matters. Canada matters in terms of emerging democracies. Canada matters in terms of looking at countries in the world that have the kind of democracy everybody would like to have. We are not the absolute best and the only one, but we are one of a very short list of countries in the world that are looked at as democratic models and ideals. That is why, to perfect our system, we will hopefully get to proportional representation, which is the next big step in bringing better democracy to Canada.

These international scholars are concerned, because if the international standard, which we are part of, starts to get watered down, what would that do for emerging democracies? Those of us who have done a number of election observation missions around the world in emerging democracies know that it is true that they hold up Canada that way. If they see Canada floundering, it leaves them wondering what hope they have.

Mr. Speaker, I forgot to add that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Honoré-Mercier.

To continue, what did these international scholars say? They said:

We, the undersigned, international scholars and political scientists, are concerned that Canada's international reputation as one of the world's guardians of democracy and human rights is threatened by passage of the proposed Fair Elections Act.

We believe that this Act would prove [to] be deeply damaging for electoral integrity within Canada, as well as providing an example which, if emulated elsewhere, may potentially harm international standards of electoral rights around the world.

It does not get much bigger than this when those outside of Canada are looking at this unfair elections act, blowing the whistle, raising the flag, and asking “What is going on”? Once again, the world is left shaking its head, asking “What happened to Canada? Where did Canada go? We have this Harper government thing, but where is Canada?”

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my wording. It was my mistake. It was a slip. I apologize, sir.

[Qalipu Mi'kmaq First Nation Act, March 6th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it would seem as if we have another case of “here we go again”. It is pretty clear that what is going on here is an attempt to disrupt the presentation of the Chief Electoral Officer at 11 o'clock, which already is going to be pushed off as a result of this motion and the vote.

Again, we see the government bringing in not only an unfair election act but also an undemocratic process around it, and that is what is going on right here. We cut an honourable deal with the government, at least I thought it was an honourable deal. It was honourable on my part and it was certainly honourable on the part of the member for Winnipeg Centre when we made a deal with the government about what would happen with the Chief Electoral Officer.

I know the Speaker is going to bring me to relevancy in a moment, and I have some recent experience with that.

My question for the minister is this. Is he not embarrassed that his own government is manipulating his bill and his issue in order to achieve an undemocratic process and deny the Chief Electoral Officer the chance to come in and give 90 minutes of uninterrupted witness testimony? Is he not embarrassed by this?

[Business of Supply, February 24th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Winnipeg North, who is also a member of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, which is the committee seized with this bill.

I want to say that the third party has been very supportive of ensuring that we push the government to bring Canadians in. I would also underscore the hon. member's comment that we would all be better served not only had the Chief Electoral Officer and Elections Canada been consulted but also had Canadians been given the opportunity to provide input at the front end of this.

The whole idea of the government is that it can just ram this through. During the Olympics, it brought in massive overhauls and, New Democrats think, problematic changes that are going to hurt Canadians' right to vote. At the same time, it dropped a budget and brought in a full overhaul of the immigration system. This is not coincidence.

The process that New Democrats have outlined gives us two months to travel the country and an opportunity to start doing clause-by-clause before May 1. That is ample time to give Canadians their say, allow the committee to do its work, and have the bill, if it is good enough, in place for the next election.

[Business of Supply, February 24th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I stand to be corrected, but I do not recall hearing in those remarks any mention of the Canadian people or of giving citizens their say. No, the Conservatives want to make this about another battle in the bubble between the government and the opposition and to have people say, after looking at it, that it is just a political squabble and it does not matter. That is exactly what their game plan is.

The member did not talk one bit about why it is okay to deny Canadians their right to have a say on their election in the places they live. That is the issue before us. This motion is exactly the one we made in committee. We are not getting the results we need at committee, so we brought it to the highest authority in Canada, the Parliament of Canada, because we want Canadians to have their say. The member did not address that and that is the issue before us: Canadians have a right to have a say about their democracy and their elections, and we are not letting go.

[Business of Supply, February 24th, 2014]

moved:

That it be an instruction to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs that, during its consideration of Bill C-23, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other Acts and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, the Committee shall: (a) hear witnesses from, but not limited to, Elections Canada, political parties as defined under the Canada Elections Act, the Minister of State who introduced the Bill, representatives of First Nations, anti-poverty groups, groups representing persons with disabilities, groups representing youth advocates and students, as well as specific groups which have been active in society on elections rules; (b) have the power to travel to all regions of Canada, (Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario, Northern Ontario, the Prairies, British Columbia and the North), including downtown urban settings, rural and remote settings, and that the Committee request that this travel take place in March and April 2014; and (c) only proceed to clause-by-clause consideration of the Bill after these hearings have been completed, with a goal to commence clause-by-clause consideration on Thursday, May 1, 2014.

Mr. Speaker, I rise as much in sorrow as in anger: sorrow in terms of the state of affairs of our democracy. We have been watching, drip by drip, the democracy that we love and respect, and that is respected around the world, being deteriorated, removed, and changed.

I will be splitting my time with the member for Hull—Aylmer.

The government brought in a bill that proposed massive sweeping changes to the way we conduct elections here in Canada. However, not long after we began discussing it, the government moved a motion to shut down debate. During the course of that debate, the government said, “Well, this is not all that important because it is the House discussion, and we want to get this to the committee to do some real work and get things done”.

We did not buy that necessarily. We wanted a good, strong, thorough opening debate here so that the committee would have a strong foundation to begin its work. However, the Conservatives have a majority and win votes ten times out of ten when they collectively stay together.

Members will appreciate that in a healthy, mature democracy there are two pieces in dealing with legislation. One is the process by which it is analyzed: who gets input, who gets a say, and what the process is for final determination. The other is the substantive part of the bill.

We put a motion on the floor at the committee to say that we would like to have certain witnesses. It is pretty motherhood, quite frankly, in terms of the witnesses we had; there was no shock there, no games, no twist. It was straightforward.

Also, given that there has been no consultation with the opposition parties or the Chief Electoral Officer, we said we would like to make sure the bill had a review that went beyond what would sort of be regular procedures here: we should get this committee out on the road, into the communities and to the people who would be affected by the proposed changes to the election laws, and give them their say.

The government, early on, indicated it might be open to that. There were actually some off-line discussions that lasted about two or three hours. However, in moving forward, as we were setting out how long we had and beginning to lay the foundations of getting negotiations, I was advised on the floor of the House of Commons that the iron curtain had come down from on high and, no; there would not be any public hearings outside the safety and security of the Ottawa bubble.

Our motion is not only reasonable, it also provides a target starting gate for clause-by-clause. Opposition parties do not normally do this. Why? It is because it would box in the timeframe and manoeuvrability.

However, we were trying to instill in the mind of the public, and most importantly in the government, that we really do want to have a negotiated process that involves getting outside the security of the safety bubble in Ottawa. Give people a chance to have their say, give us an adequate number of days and hours to discuss this properly, and then we could reach an agreement. We could then move on and begin to fill in the days we have identified. We could get speakers lined up, do the usual sorts of things, identify the communities we would be going to, and then start talking about who we would see there. All of that should be happening right now.

Those who study the history of this place and our democracy will know that any attempt to change the rules of the election needs to have the buy-in of all those who participate. We just finished the Olympics. Did the host country decide all of the Olympic rules? No; there is equal input from all the participants because it is the rules of the game, and then we enjoy the games.

That is what used to happen in Canada. It blows my mind that I even have to make the statement, and then the government refused to meet with the Chief Electoral Officer. It is ridiculous. We took one of their reports, and it took over two Parliaments for us to go through every clause and talk about it, have give and take, bring in experts, review the idea, and bring back the experts. However, that was a minority government. That was when there was a much stronger sense of the real Canadian democracy that we know.

We have the floor at committee, call it a filibuster. It is not much of a filibuster; it has only gone one meeting. Nonetheless, we have the floor and we are not relinquishing it. We have sent a message: we are not going to allow any committee travel that we have a say in, in terms of fast-tracking it with unanimous consent. The government members can still do things by motion, but they will have to take the time. We are not giving them the unanimous consent, the way we normally would.

It is not because we are being petulant, but because we believe this is important. As the official opposition, it is our job, our responsibility to Canadians, to put up resistance as a matter of course and in particular when we think something wrong is happening.

With what is at stake here, these are some of the concerns we have. I want to get this on the record. We are concerned that this new legislation will block tens of thousands of students, seniors, aboriginal people, and low-income Canadians from exercising their right to vote.

It is bad enough that most of them are being left out of the economy of Canada, now there are folks who want to keep them out of the elections of Canada. Why? One does not have to stretch their imagination to guess why the government would like those folks to stay home.

It will create loopholes that will allow big money back into Canadian politics. We know, and all Canadians know, that the Conservatives have more money than probably all the other political parties put together, but certainly more than all the other political parties. Money, in and of itself, in a democracy does not outright buy an election, but in a tight one only a few seats need to be bought.

Let us remember, we live in a country with a system right now, as proud as we are of our democracy, in which a party can get less than 40% of the vote and it still gets 100% of the power. That is why this system fails Canadians. At the end of the day, we need to move to proportional representation. That is another debate. That debate will become a reality when the NDP forms the government in 2015 and brings in proportional representation. Then we will be back on the cutting edge of modern democracies.

Lastly, we in the official opposition are concerned that the bill, and we think it says so straight out, will ban Elections Canada from teaching kids about our democracy.

We have these concerns. The government will say that they are not legitimate. Fair enough. Let us go ask the Canadian people what they say. It is their elections. It is their Canada. It is their democracy. They are the ones who stand to be disenfranchised. We need to go to those communities and give them an opportunity not to only say why this bill affects their rights but also to show us. We should go to the far north.

Those of us who have international election observation missions know the extreme differences between voting in cities and in rural villages and mountains. It is the same here in Canada. People in the far north have a very different political election experience than those who are in cities. We have concerns about what is going to happen in the cities. Let us get out there.

My last comment is this: we can solve this in 30 minutes. I said that I rise more in sorry than in anger. We want to get off the process and get on to the substance of the bill. I believe within 30 minutes we could sit down and negotiate with the government a process that is a fair compromise. We are not going to get everything we want, but neither should the government. Let us negotiate, compromise, come up with a process that we can all live with, give Canadians their say, and then we can get on with debating the actual details of the bill.

However, until the government stops ramming things through, believing it has the right to deny Canadians their voice, we will continue to fight and use every tool we have to bring democracy to this place, even if the Conservatives do not believe in democracy.

[Democratic Reform, February 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary said he was opposed to cross-country hearings on the unfair elections act because it would “influence public opinion”. Is that what the minister is afraid of, Canadians having the audacity to exercise their democratic right to express their personal views on this bill?

[Democratic Reform, February 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader left today's committee meeting on the unfair elections act to say he was against cross-country hearings, and said that meeting with Canadians would be a “gong show”. Does the Minister of State for Democratic Reform agree with the parliamentary secretary? Is that why they will not have cross-country public hearings, or are they just afraid to face Canadians?

[Fair Elections Act, February 10th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, one of our colleagues actually said that given the fact the government has a whole list of serial cheaters, it would make all the sense in the world to make sure that we give people an opportunity to have their say.

The government has had its run-ins with Elections Canada. We know how it feels about public agents and public servants speaking words it does not like. We remember what happened to the nuclear watchdog: gone. The government practically vilified the PBO, Kevin Page, because it did not like what he had to say and so it went after him.

We believe that part of the motivation here is that the government does not like Chief Electoral Officer Mayrand. Why does the government not like him? It is because he is doing his job. I think Canadians will be very interested to hear what Mr. Mayrand has to say about this bill when we finally get it in front of committee.

[Fair Elections Act, February 10th, 2014]

I heard the minister just say “Even me.” Even the minister had a good question.

The point is that there are different answers and different interpretations, and that is why what matters right now in the dying moments of this debate is to get a commitment from the government that this is not just going to get buried in a committee, stuffed away in some kind of secret or in camera meeting for three or four days, to then pop out again and come back to the House, where closure is moved again and the bill rammed through.

That cannot happen. However, I am not yet hearing anyone from the government committing to giving Canadians their say on their election law.

[Fair Elections Act, February 10th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I understand the issue that the member is raising. Everyone is raising good points. They are all good issues. That is the point.