Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to rise here this evening and support the motion the member for Toronto—Danforth has put forward, and I would like to thank him for his work on this file. He has done a tremendous job not just on this issue but on all the issues he is handling regarding democracy in this country.
I would just remind you, Mr. Speaker, that I will be splitting my time with the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine.
Democratic reform and protecting democracy in Canada are issues that are very close to my heart. I have studied and worked on this topic for 20 years, both as a student and as a professor. There are many concerns we have with the so-called fair elections act that has been put forward by the government, and this motion directly calls for its rejection. It is really worth reading the motion in detail, because it sums up our problems. It says:
That, in the opinion of the House, proposed changes to the Elections Act that would prohibit vouching, voter education programming by Elections Canada, and the use of voter cards as identification could disenfranchise many Canadians, particularly first-time voters like youth and new Canadians, Aboriginal Canadians and seniors living in residence, and should be abandoned.
This really sums up what will be the crux of my speech and the concerns many Canadians have, regular Canadians but also those who have, as I have, spent their lives studying this issue. In fact, I hope to show in this short speech that the Conservative proposals are not in the best interests of Canadians and that our motion should be passed.
Canada has long been seen as one of the most democratic countries in the world. Indeed, Elections Canada is consulted internationally so that other countries can learn how we do things here. The way we conduct our elections is the gold standard of how elections are conducted around the world and is something we should be proud of. However, I look now at how our democracy is performing overall, and I wonder if we have not hit a bit of a peak or have even passed our peak.
Voter turnout has been on a slow decline since the 1980s, and what is worse, we are creating cycles of non-voting. Citizens, for example, no longer join political parties. Less than two per cent of the citizenry is active in political parties. Once held in high regard, politicians are now loathed by the public, and in fact, both provincial and federal legislatures do not reflect the populations they represent. We could go on and on about where things used to be better and are declining.
I want to focus my remarks on voter turnout and use this to show why the Conservatives' proposed act is not only wrong in detail but is wrong in spirit and in the process by which it would be implemented.
In the 1960s, almost 80% of those eligible to cast votes did so. In the 2011 election, voter turnout dropped to just over 60%, a decline of 20 percentage points. This is not a one-off decline. It is not a dip in voter turnout. This is really a pattern. Turnout has not been higher than 65% in this country any time in this century. It has declined, and we are entering a period of further decline. That is why I am saying again that I think democracy has perhaps peaked in Canada.
The reasons for the decline in turnout are many, but some have to do with declining government investment in efforts to help get people to the polls. The Conservative proposals not only would take money away, for example, for door-to-door registration but would actually add additional barriers to participation. Why I say that this violates the spirit of what we try to do here in Canada is that it is going to make our low turnout problem even worse.
This is a very serious situation from two perspectives. First, many would agree that high voter turnout is in itself a good thing, and low voter turnout, in turn, is a bad thing. Second, and perhaps more serious, is that disengagement can undermine the legitimacy of the government, and in the extreme case, lead to instability. The low levels of turnout we now have will only get worse, especially if the Conservatives force this bill through Parliament.
It is worth noting the kind of cycle we are having of low voter turnout. Of those eligible to vote for the first time in 1965, almost 70% voted. By 2008, the turnout of voters who were first eligible to vote in 1965 had increased to 75%.
If we look at first-time voters in the year 2000, of those eligible to vote in 2004, only 34% voted. By the 2008 election, this group was still stuck at 34%.
What we are getting is a cycle of non-voting. Of those born in the sixties, 70% voted and have continued to vote in those numbers as we moved forward through elections. Of those born in the 20th century, one-third are voting, and they are stuck with one-third voting.
This is the cycle of non-voting of which political scientists speak. It is something we have to work to fix rather than what this Conservative bill proposes to do, which will make things worse.
Turnouts are low and dropping, non-voters are continuing to be non-voters, and there are more groups that are permanently disenfranchised from our voting system.
It is important not to take my word for it. Recently, over 150 political scientists wrote an open letter to the government on this matter. It is worth repeating what they had to say. These 150 professors are the cream of the crop as far as political scientists go in Canada. They are mostly chairs and full professors as well as people who all parties in the House have called upon to serve on boundary review committees, to head up royal commissions, and to advise on any matters to do with democracy. It is a multi-partisan group, one that some parties would favour and others would not favour. It is the grand collection of political scientists.
In their open letter to the Prime Minister and the Parliament of Canada, they said that if Bill C-23 was passed, it “would damage the institution at the heart of the country's democracy: voting in federal elections”.
Further, these 150 political scientists urged the government to heed the call for wider consultation in vetting the bill.
This is another problem with what is happening here in terms of the spirit of democratic reform. In the past, any changes to elections would be done in a non-partisan or multi-partisan way. Not only would we consult Elections Canada and experts around the country and perhaps outside the country, we would definitely be consulting the Canadian public. This has been abandoned with Bill C-23. We have had closure on debate, and this bill is being rammed through without any real discussion and without discussion with Elections Canada, which seems absurd, since that is the institution at the centre of this legislation.
These 150 political scientists are urging the government to consult more widely. While they agree, and we have heard today, that there are some things that could be looked at with our electoral system, they are worried about the serious damage that will occur with the passing of Bill C-23.
It is worth noting who these folks are, the drafters of this open letter, which can be seen in many publications, such as the National Post or The Globe and Mail. Professors Deveaux, Williams, Cameron, Dawood, Lenard, and Fuji Johnson are the main drafters. However, this letter has also been signed by 16 past-presidents of the Canadian Political Science Association: Caroline Andrew, Michael Atkinson, Keith Banting, Sylvia Bashevkin, André Blais, Kenneth Carty, John Courtney, Elisabeth Gidengil, Richard Johnston, Peter Russell, Grace Skogstad, David Smith, Miriam Smith, Reeta Tremblay, Graham White, and Robert Young.
If we put all of these signatories together in a room, I would hazard a guess that we could solve any political science problem we have in this country. Of course, none of these people have been consulted on this bill. It is outrageous that these changes are going ahead and are being forced through Parliament without any consultation at all and without any expert advice. It has been drafted in a back room. It is something that would advantage one party over other parties, and it violates the spirit of what we have done here in the past. That is why I support the opposition day motion that has been put forward today.
I call upon the government to drop Bill C-23. Let us go back to the drawing board and consult with experts and regular Canadians to figure out how to make democracy better and how to improve our falling voter turnout.
