Libby Davies

[Housing, November 23rd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, in 2010, Vancouver will host the Olympics with much fanfare but, unless immediate action is taken, the number of homeless people on the street will triple, according to a report by Pivot.

Low income residents are being evicted at an alarming rate in the downtown east side, with over 800 single rooms lost in three years. Abysmal poverty welfare rates mean people are destined to stay homeless, destitute or without support.

It is astounding that VANOC offered $500,000 to clear the streets for two weeks during the Olympics. I guess it does not care about the before and after.

Why has the Conservative government ignored the critical need to fund a national, sustainable social housing program? The bottom line must be for the three levels of government to make affordable housing a priority. Income splitting will not help those on the streets. Tax cuts will not build housing.

The Olympics is Canada's showcase to the world. Will it also be the shame of a wealthy country that denies the basic necessities of life to its poorest citizens?

[Canada Elections Act, November 8th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, there are some issues with the bill. The idea of a voter identification sounds very good, but the devil is in the details. To make sure it is equitable, we will have to look at its actual implementation and how it will affect different groups of people. That is our concern.

Whether or not it is in time for the next election, I do not know. I am not so concerned about that. I am concerned that we get this bill right if we are adopting a fairly major change. We have never had voter identification in our national elections so this is something quite substantially new. If we are going to do that, we have to do it properly. That is what we will be focusing on. I look forward to the Bloc assisting us with it to make sure that we are not leaving out people who otherwise will be forfeiting their right to vote.

[Canada Elections Act, November 8th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments and I will respond to them as quickly as I can.

In actual fact, my information is that the new language in the bill would bring our system federally in line with what we have in B.C. as well. Actually, under the B.C. system there are problems in terms of people without identification who vote. We can look at the Quebec system, but I know it is a problem. What we can do federally now cannot be done provincially in B.C. in terms of homeless people who are not on the list being able to vote if they do not have ID. That is something to pay attention to.

In terms of the address, I am not sure that it is so much of a problem. A change took place, I believe in the 2000 election, such that homeless persons actually could state that their address was the shelter where they resided. But the issue we are dealing with here is the actual ID that is required. The homeless may have an address that is a shelter or they may say it is located in a particular area. I am not sure that is so much the problem. It is not having the ID or a photograph ID that is the problem.

I think there is an important issue about enumeration. If we had what we used to have, which was a full enumeration, we would not have this problem. I remember the days when enumerators went door to door and registered voters at the door. It was a very fine system. Now it is completely gone. I wish we could bring that back. I think it would be a lot more accessible and a lot more democratic.

We now have very limited enumeration, and again, I think it is a system that discriminates against people who do not own property, who do not necessarily fill out income tax forms every year, or who are not on the registered list, the permanent list. There are people who get disenfranchised as a result of the system we have. We have to pay attention to that. I believe it is very important. We will work very hard for amendments to make sure that there are not groups of people who are left out simply because they are poor or do not have the proper ID.

[Canada Elections Act, November 8th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, we heard the discussion yesterday by other parties that spoke to Bill C-31, the voter integrity bill, and now the NDP is here to put forward its issues and concerns about the bill.

I want to say at the outset that the member for Acadie—Bathurst, who is a member of the procedure and House affairs committee, was a member of the committee when the report was done, a report that was based on the bill before us. However, I should make it clear that the bill only deals with a few of the matters that came from the report. I was at committee when the Chief Electoral Officer, Mr. Kingsley, responded to the issues in the report.

The bill deals with a voter identification system based on the premise that fraud and serial voting take place and therefore we need a voter identification system in our national registry and in our voting system.

The NDP is very supportive of the need to take measures to ensure fraud does not take place within the voting system. It is very important that we protect the integrity of the system. We are talking about a time honoured, democratic process where eligible voters have a proper place to vote and we have integrity in our system. From that point of view, we support the need to review the system and ensure measures are in place to lower the risk of fraud. I am sure it cannot be eliminated 100%, but measures should be in place to offer that protection.

What is being offered as the main solution to this problem is a voter identification system. In looking at the bill and knowing where this came from at committee, we want to express some of our concerns about what may be the unintended consequences of the ID system on voters. In particular, we are concerned about how this would impact low income people, people who live in small remote communities and aboriginal people who do not have the necessary ID outlined in the bill.

I represent the riding of Vancouver East where, in one community, the downtown east side, regrettably and unfortunately, many people do not have IDs through no fault of their own. These people are often homeless and often transient and they have difficulty getting government ID. They certainly do not have photo ID.

One of the problems with the bill is that it would require one piece of photo ID from any level of government or two pieces of ID that are authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer. A further provision in the bill says that an elector who is not registered can take a statutory oath if he or she is accompanied by an elector with ID whose name appears on the list of electors for the same polling division.

On the surface this may sound like a reasonable measure in that it would allow people with no ID to have some mechanism to vote. However, I have looked at this carefully and have talked to lawyers in my community who have been involved in providing assistance around statutory declarations for voters with no ID, and they are very concerned, as I am, about what this provision will mean.

At present, it is acceptable for a voter to make a statutory declaration along with a person in the community who can identify the voter. In the downtown east side, it has often been a street worker, someone who knows many of the people in the community, who vouches for the individual. Under the new bill this would no longer be allowed.

We are very concerned that this provision may have a very negative consequence and may disenfranchise potentially thousands and thousands of people who will now, through no fault of their own, not be able to vote.

We are prepared to see this bill go to committee. The government has said that it is willing to look at amendments that would correct this to ensure that by dealing with voter fraud, we are not at the same time unintentionally disenfranchising people who have a right to vote, who want to vote and who are voting legitimately, but would be precluded from doing so by these new provisions.

When the bill goes to committee, it is our intention to see substantive improvements and changes made to this bill to address what are very fundamental democratic issues. One of the provisions in the bill is that a person vouching for another can only do it for one person. This would set up a very complicated system where people who are not registered and who do not have ID would be running around trying to find somebody else who is registered, is on the list and does have the proper ID, and then getting that one person to vouch for one person. It would create a very complex situation and could mean that a lot of people would not get to vote.

It may also impact more middle class voters who go to the polls thinking that because they are registered they are okay. They have the voter cards and some ID, only to find that when they get there they do not have the proper ID. We may actually be frustrating those people.

I would also point out that this has been an issue in the U.S. elections and in fact there have been some court challenges. A similar provision was struck down in Georgia and there is currently a challenge going on in Ohio. In the United States, there is no centralized voter registration or election apparatus. It is contingent upon each state, and varies from each state, but a similar provision has been used in the U.S. and it actually has caused immense problems in the current elections that were just held yesterday. Challenges are underway and some of the provisions in some states have already been struck down. We should learn from this.

In terms of the principle of dealing with fraud, we support that but we do want to ensure we are not setting up a system that creates a two tier system where it becomes increasingly difficult for marginalized, low income people to actually exercise their franchise, which would be a travesty.

I do not think that is what anyone intended in this bill, at least I hope not. However, it will be up to us in committee to hear from experts, especially the lawyers who are very familiar, as are those in my community, with the statutory declaration process. They will be able to offer some insight into how this process works and may be able to tell us what we need to not only protect the system but protect people's right to vote.

With those kinds of concerns and reservations that we have, we are prepared to see this bill go to committee where I hope we can sit down and work on some amendments to make sure people who legitimately have the right to vote are not disenfranchised.

[Canada Elections Act, November 8th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions and I believe that if you seek it you would find unanimous consent to split my time with the member for Ottawa Centre.

[Canada Elections Act, November 7th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I heard the government House leader say earlier that he hoped the bill would go through earlier. Maybe he knows something that we do not know. Maybe he knows there is going to be an election and he is hoping this will come into effect before that.

We have some concerns with the bill. The bill is called the voter integrity bill, which is very interesting. After reading through it, I have a lot of concerns about how it will impact people in low income communities who do not have identification. I take my own riding as an example. In the downtown east side, and in other ridings as well, potentially thousands of people will actually be disenfranchised by the provisions requiring two pieces of identification.

Has the government House leader considered the unintended consequences of the bill? Is the government willing to consider provisions that would make some changes so poor people, who do not have identification, would not be disenfranchised?

[Points of Order, November 7th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the member for Burnaby—New Westminster raised a point of order concerning the fact that he believed the international trade committee had exceeded its power in dealing with business before the committee . In your response to his point of order, Mr. Speaker, you pointed out that it dealt with matters that were dealt with by a committee, not by a chair making a unilateral decision to impose a rule. Therefore, you did not agree with his point of order.

However, I want to bring to your, Mr. Speaker, attention two new and additional concerns of which I believe you should be aware, and they concern this committee.

The first has to do with the fact that advertising was put forward. There was a listing for a televised hearing of the international trade committee, which yesterday or this morning was mysteriously and unilaterally cancelled, without notice and without any reason.

The committee did not make the decision to cancel the televised hearing. We do not know if it was the chair who unilaterally made that decision, or whether it was someone higher up at the ministerial level or the PMO. However, we believe this is a serious matter because the public relies upon televised hearings. They are advertised. They come to expect that it would be held for certain committees. Yet in this case, it was unilaterally cancelled.

Second, Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out that this committee is now meeting without a break. Indeed, it sat through question period even though there were objections to that. I have never heard of a committee doing that. Usually there is a break during question period or for votes. Even if a majority of the committee members decided they wanted to do that, by doing so, they violated the privilege of one member, or any number of members, by preventing the member from coming to question period.

In fact, what has happened is the member for Burnaby—New Westminster, because he could not forfeit his right to deal with amendments clause by clause in that committee, had to forfeit his right to come to question period today. I find it astounding that this would be allowed to happen.

We would like to ask you, Mr. Speaker, to consider this. We believe his privilege has been violated. He cannot even be here in the House right now to raise this question with you himself because he is stuck in the committee and cannot get out.

We want to know why televised hearings, which have been listed, can be unilaterally cancelled? This is something that should concern us all. Why was the member's privilege violated and why was he prevented from attending question period?

We would ask you, Mr. Speaker, to look into this and to give us a ruling.

[Business of Supply, November 2nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There have been discussions among all parties and I believe you would find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That, at the conclusion of today's debate on the opposition motion in the name of the member for Sackville--Eastern Shore, all questions necessary to dispose of the motion be deemed put and a recorded division deemed requested and deferred until Tuesday, November 7 at the expiry of the time provided for government orders.

[Business of Supply, November 2nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There have been discussions between all the parties and I believe you would find unanimous consent for the following motion: That at the conclusion of today's debate on the opposition motion in the name of the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore, all questions necessary to dispose of the motion be deemed put, and a recorded division deemed requested and deferred until Tuesday, November 7, 2006, at the expiry of the time provided for government orders.

I ask that this motion be put forward.

[Points of Order, November 1st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on the same point of order. I did not hear the beginning of the comments of the member who has raised the question about Bill C-257 and Bill C-295, but I have the general gist of it. There are a number of issues here as well as concerns that we would want to put forward, because it is our member who has introduced Bill C-295.

The first point I would make is that when these bills were introduced they were approved by the Table. They both came forward in good faith, so certainly to suggest now that through some other arbitrary measure or ruling by the Speaker or that you somehow make a decision that one bill would be removed, I think that would very much place this member in limbo.

The fact is that these two bills, although they deal with the same subject matter, that is, replacement workers, are different bills. There are differences between the two bills, for example, in the question of penalties. I do not have the two bills before me so I cannot go through them clause by clause, but there are differences in these bills. That is why they were permitted in the first place.

If you made such a ruling as requested by the member from the Liberal Party, what would happen to that member who has the second bill? She has proceeded in good faith. She is about to go to a second hour of debate. If she chooses to make some other arrangement with a member in terms of the order in which things come up, that is her prerogative, but to have that decided by a third party, whether it is you or somebody else, I think would be very unusual. I do not know on what basis that would be done. I would be very concerned that she would lose the position she has. I think that would actually set a precedent, because then where else would it happen in private members' business?

I understand the concerns of the member, but I think to take such an action through the Speaker and to remove that member's place would be highly unusual and very problematic. The bill is now here and it is in effect the property of the House. I really question whether or not what the member is suggesting is a wise thing to do in the long run and so I would ask you to take that under advisement if you are going to consider this question.