Paul Dewar

[Canada Elections Act, February 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre is onto something here.

First, I will speak to the charter challenge. This was not something we made up and theorized about. This was brought forward while the bill was in committee. People said that if this becomes a barrier to people voting, then, as my colleague from Winnipeg Centre said, it will be challenged because access to the right to vote is absolutely fundamental in the charter.

People who work on behalf of the rights of those who are disenfranchised, civil libertarians, have said that this will be something that will need to be challenged. When we put barriers to exercise franchise, then it is the responsibility of any citizen who can to challenge this. Notwithstanding the gutting of the court challenges program, people will do it in any event.

It is a real challenge in terms of where this is going. We will end up spending millions of dollars in court for something that need not happen. As I mentioned, an envelope would have sufficed, as well as universal enumeration.

On the socio-economic question that my colleague from Winnipeg Centre asked, I think of Stanley Knowles who used to represent a riding in Winnipeg and what he would think of this bill. Stanley Knowles was a champion of the disenfranchised. He prided himself on ensuring that those who did not have a voice were heard. I think Mr. Knowles would see this bill as an attempt to thwart the voice of the disenfranchised.

How can we see it any other way when we are taking away the ability of those who are the most vulnerable to vote? That is very clear in this bill. The bill puts up more barriers to people who do not have access to the kind of identification that we would have in our wallets because of the advantage that we have, which primarily has to do with socio-economics.

I think my colleague from Winnipeg Centre is on to something here. Why? Is this done with intent? Is this done to take out certain people from the democracy that we all cherish so much? I would hate to see that happen and hopefully one day people will see the error of their ways and change it.

[Canada Elections Act, February 16th, 2007]

Yes, we will have retina scans, but we should not suggest that because they will probably adopt it. We must decide whether or not the privacy and liberties of Canadians are important.

As we have this creeping big brother kind of approach coming into people's lives, we need to stop and take a look at why we are doing this and what the purpose is.

The last comment I will make is that Canadians--

[Canada Elections Act, February 16th, 2007]

Yes, they are tough on crime, but they are going to hand over the facilities for crime. They are going to give them the kit for their use.

We have just seen some incredible breaches of privacy with credit cards and bank cards. Concerns have been raised about privacy of information being one of the key issues.

As my friend from Winnipeg Centre said, one committee is trying to figure out how to protect citizens' privacy and then the House presents a bill that will hand over a person's identity to whomever.

Every single political party now will have that information and will be able to use it for whatever purpose. I have heard members on the other side say that no, people will not use it for nefarious reasons. How would they know that? All of us know that electoral lists are used by political parties and the information gets out to many people. Lists are handed over to people so they can canvass. That information is shared with many different groups.

The key thing is that today, members in the House are saying, not only through the amendment, but through the sanctioning of this bill, that they support the undermining of the privacy of Canadians' personal information. That is what is being done here.

I brought forward amendments to take out the Bloc amendment that would allow the sharing of birthdate information with all political parties. No one, including the Conservatives, voted with my party. They thought it was fine for the birthdate to stay.

Let us be clear about what we are doing with the bill. We are taking away the opportunity for some people to vote. We are handing over the private information of Canadians to Elections Canada and to political parties.

Why are we doing this? It was mentioned at the beginning of this debate that this was apparently a problem because of the opportunity for voter fraud. It was not based on evidence of thousands of cases of voter fraud, but only the potential that there could be voter fraud.

I think that when most Canadians find out that barriers have been put in the way of their access to their franchise they will be very upset. They will want to know why members did not stand up and speak against this provision. They will find out that the government, the Liberals and the Bloc got together and said it was fine, that there was no problem and that they were looking out for the better interests of Canadians.

Canadians will ask why their birthdate information is included. In my constituency this is an issue for many seniors. Seniors do not appreciate having their birthdate information broadcast to all the employees of Elections Canada, let alone all the political parties.

Many people I know, particularly seniors, are very proud of who they are, but they are also very private people. They will not appreciate that their birthdate information will be known by organizers and people in the back rooms. They will be targeted by fundraisers. Organizations salivate over this type of information.

That is what probably happened in the Conservative Party. Originally in committee the Conservatives were against this amendment. I think what happened is that this went to headquarters and a light bulb went on and the organizers were salivating about the potential for targeting their message to voters.

There is also the wider potential for fundraising. We know that members of the Liberal Party have been cut off from their sugar daddy. They do not have access to funds like they used to. They are flailing around. It was a no-brainer for them. The Liberals said that they would support the Bloc amendment because they would now have an opportunity to raise funds from people and niche their message based on people's age.

That is what all of this is about. This is about political parties deciding that they can use this information for their own purposes. When I asked the Conservatives, the Liberals and the Bloc as to why political parties needed the birthdate information of electors, they dodged the question. They have not answered the question. They refer to the need for verification. There is verification. An identity number is assigned to each voter. There is the presentation of photo ID. This is similar to the old Soviet Union where people had to present their papers as they travelled around.

[Canada Elections Act, February 16th, 2007]

We are hearing variations of who will have this information. I can get to that in a minute. Maybe there is something we do not know about the government's entrepreneurial ideas. Why will they have this information? Because the Bloc Québécois put forward an amendment that would allow birthdate information to be shared with all political parties.

The Liberals supported it in committee. The Conservatives at the time were pretty level-headed about it and they voted against the amendment. However, the amendment went forward and was brought forward to the House.

The sad thing is, and to this day I cannot figure it out, the people who we would normally associate with civil liberties and the idea of wanting to ensure that the privacy of one's identity would be safe, the Conservative Party, decided it would support the Bloc amendment as did the Liberals supported the amendment. Something does not pass the smell test. Now we have the Conservative Party and the Liberals supporting the Bloc amendment to have birthdate information given to all political parties.

Let us go over some of the political parties with which this will be shared. It will be shared with all parties represented here, the Green Party, the Marijuana Party, the Rhinoceros Party, the Communist Party, the Marxist-Leninist Party, the Christian Heritage Party, the whole gamut. I cannot fathom why the government would want all these people, including the New Democratic Party, to have the birthdate information of Canadians. It puzzles me.

My friend from Winnipeg Centre has an analogy that would be fitting.We have government-sanctioned identity theft kits here. What we are saying is, “Here you go”.

[Canada Elections Act, February 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it has been interesting to listen to the debate on Bill C-31 today. This is a bill that we have described as insufficient. It has not dealt with the real issue of what the failure of electoral system is. It does not deal with electoral reform. We soon will bring that forward for the House. One of my colleagues has a motion on which we will be voting and it will get to the heart of the problem in our system, which is the fact that we do not have a fair voting system.

Alas, though, we do have Bill C-31 in front of us. I think it is important to go back to the origin of the bill, which was a committee report that was cherry-picked by the government. The government decided it would use the opportunity to respond to a committee report by putting forward an agenda that it thought would make it look good in the eyes of the public. We have seen this piecemeal approach to democratic reform from the government before. Those members take a morsel here and a morsel there and try to make it sound like dinner, but it is not. It is just crumbs.

The government has done this before. Recently we heard that the government was going to deal with Senate reform by way of having elections in the provinces. The Prime Minister would bless it and it somehow would be real reform. That is piecemeal. It is pretending to be doing something.

Mr. Broadbent, my predecessor, had an ethics package that included the idea of fixed election dates. The government put that idea forward. No arguments there, but the government has not dealt with the other piece of Mr. Broadbent's ethics package, the fundamental changes he proposed to make our system fairer so that a citizen's vote would actually mean something.

Here we have Bill C-31. I guess the government thought that with this bill it would look credible because it was going to solve the problem of the opportunity for voter fraud. It is very important to state that: the opportunity for voter fraud. Because, as my colleague from Winnipeg Centre quite rightly pointed out, “there is no there there”, as the quote goes, when we talk about voter fraud. It is the opportunity. If we could deal with that, then I guess we could be dealing with many other issues. Climate change is not the opportunity but is what in front of us and the government has finally come on board and recognized it, a little late perhaps, but there it is.

This idea that we are dealing with the opportunity for voter fraud is what the government is responding to with Bill C-31. The government quickly put a bill together and made it look as if it was going to solve the voter fraud problem that was so ubiquitous. Then it would be seen as credible, as cleaning up the system.

I dare say the Conservatives did not do their homework. When the Chief Electoral Officer responded to the whole idea of voter fraud, he was very clear. He said there was rampant integrity in the system and in citizens. He said there was no problem. We heard evidence that there have been four cases over three years.

The government has decided that it knows best. I call this bill the big brother bill. Why? Because it says that the government is going to tell citizens what is best for them. It claims to know better than ordinary citizens. It claims to know better than the witnesses who came forward. The witnesses said the bill would not be good for citizens, but the bill says that is okay because the government knows better.

Witnesses told us that the bill would not increase voter participation. It would put barriers in front of people. As has been mentioned by my colleagues, it is probably a recipe for further disenchantment with the voter system. It will mean that fewer people will actually participate in voting. If that was the intent of the bill and the government, they have succeeded, because that in fact is what will happen.

We have identified clauses 18 and 21 of the bill as major concerns. I put amendments forward. These clauses are really going to disenfranchise people and open up the privacy of everyday citizens to people who will be able to exploit it.

I considered that if this were an opportunity for the government to address the problem of voter fraud, instead opposing the bill, I would bring forward ideas and amendments in committee. As has already been mentioned, one of the concerns is the voter card. Why are these voter cards left in hallways in apartment buildings. Anyone can pick them up and use them for whatever purpose, including voter fraud?

A simple piece of technology called an envelope can be employed. In fact, I brought this idea forward in committee. I suggested this to the Chief Electoral Officer who said that it was a good idea, that it was something his department was looking at. Yet when it was put forward as an amendment, the government said that it was out of the scope of the bill.

The government has failed to accept a simple solution, a common sense idea of putting voter cards in envelopes addressed to the voter. If the voter has moved, it will be returned to sender. It happens all the time with other pieces of mail. Why not do this with something as important as a voter card? Hopefully the government will find a way to bring that idea forward.

Everyone in this place knows the problems with the centralized voters list. We know why we went to that list, which was to save money.

The most important aspect of our democracy is the right to vote, to participate. It seems passing strange that we would not see the wisdom of investing and supporting universal enumeration, that we would not go door to door, as was mentioned by my colleague, the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre. We could employ people, for instance seniors or people at the Legion and others, who had the time and could use some extra income to go door to door. They know their neighbourhoods.

People who are members of civic and community associations could help out. As a kid, I recall the knock on the door. An enumerator would confirm who was on the voters list and ensure that the names were written down. These lists were more accurate than the centralized voters lists we now have on computer. That idea was put forward, but, alas, the government again said that it knew better, big brother, that it would not invest in it. Instead, it would do targeted enumeration.

The problem with targeted enumeration is that it is hit and miss, more often miss than hit. What we end up with is a scattered approach across the country. Voters lists in some areas are accurate and up to date, such as bedroom communities where there is a low turnover rate.

What happens in the areas where there is high turnover? There is massive turnover in my riding of Ottawa Centre. It is always a problem. A very simple solution to that would be to go door to door. That idea has not been embraced by the government. When it was proposed as an amendment to the bill, it was not accepted.

If members were to ask people in Tim Hortons or on Main Street what makes sense to them, to continue with a centralized computerized voters list that does not work or have door to door enumeration that would clean up the list, they would probably say that it would make sense to go door to door, employ people who need extra income and have an accurate voters list. It is the most important tool we have to allow people to vote. Their names are on the voters list.

If we were to go through the history of our country, people would be shouting from their graves and asking what we were doing. They fought for the right to vote and we are undermining that.

Those are two ideas. The first is to put the voter's card in an envelope, address it to the voter and if the person has moved on, the card is be returned to sender, prompting a cleanup of the list. The second is door to door enumeration. It makes sense and is a worthy investment.

Look at the money that is spent in government, yet it will not consider investing in enumeration. My constituents shake their heads and ask me what we are doing in this place, if we cannot even come up with something as fundamental as funding for enumeration. The voter's list is the bedrock, the foundation of our democracy. That suggestion has been rejected by the government.

The one that troubles me the most, and I have spoke about it in this place many times, is the idea that Canadians' privacy will be at risk because of the bill. As I mentioned before, the have the following in the bill. We have a requirement for photo ID to be presented when people vote. If they do not have photo ID, they are to present two pieces of ID that have been sanctioned by the government. If they are unable to produce that, someone has to vouch for them and that person has to be on the voter's list. That is the sequencing.

Each voter now, according to this bill, will be given an identification number, I guess analogous to an ID number such as a SIN. That is fine, we did not argue with that. In fact, we did not argue with having photo ID or the other two pieces of ID. We argued about what happened when people did not have that.

However, the piece that puzzles me to this day is the fact that the government saw fit to add birthdate information on the voter's list. I fought that in committee. I did not think it was necessary because we would have photo ID and a voter identifier. Because of this terrible problem of opportunity for voter fraud, which as we have already mentioned that there have been four cases in three elections, we will now have the birthdate information of Canadians on the voter's lists. This is absurd.

Not only will Elections Canada have information, every political party will have this.

[Canada Elections Act, February 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Winnipeg Centre has given us a precise and poignant response to this bill and the problems therein.

To be clear about this, he made mention of what happened in committee about the birthdate information. The birthdate information in the bill was originally put in to be used for voter verification, notwithstanding that we would also have a number assigned to every voter. Birthdate information would be included for purposes of verification for Elections Canada. It was the Bloc that moved an amendment to have this information shared with political parties. That was supported by the Liberals.

To be clear on this, at the time, the Conservatives in committee voted against that amendment. Then, when I brought this forward at report stage to have that amendment taken out, they fell silent, so this so-called champion of privacy and libertarian ideals is gone from the Conservative Party and has been replaced with big brother.

I just wanted to be clear about this. The Conservatives did not support the big brother amendment of the Bloc that was supported by our friends in the Liberal Party; I guess they can raise money now because they have been cut off from their corporate welfare so they have to figure out how to actually widen their donor base. So now they will do what they have always done and rely on something else instead of going out and rolling up their sleeves and getting to work. They will rely on the database provided by the Bloc.

However, now the Conservatives are supporting that, so we have a government-sanctioned identity theft kit out there, and for what? It is for the political parties. Every time I ask why the political parties need this, they never answer the question, not the Conservatives, not the Liberals and definitely not the Bloc, but they do mention that they would like to get the birthday cards out soon, I understand.

That was to set the record straight. The Conservatives, in committee, were against sharing birthdate information. Now they are in favour of it. I think that is important to note.

[Canada Elections Act, February 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his attempt at trying to answer the question. I guess I will have to restate it for him. My question was not about that particular amendment, which does nothing, zero, zilch, rien, nada for homeless people.

I was referring to the fact that there are people who have been helping the homeless with statutory declarations and other methods. The member was at committee. He knows this is not about having enumerators going to a certain place and getting homeless people on the list. This is about homeless people presenting themselves at a polling station and there is no one there on the voters list who can vouch for them. The people advocating for the homeless said this would be a barrier.

We are basically ignoring what the witnesses said at committee. We are basically saying that we know better, that Big Brother is in charge. We are not listening to people who are actually citizens and those who are advocates. I am just curious as to my colleague's take on this.

The member said he put the amendment forward. We all put the amendment forward in the spirit of cooperation. It was not challenged. I put the idea forward as well.

Does my colleague not agree that a barrier is still there for homeless people and aboriginal people? Only one person on the voters list will be able to vouch for another person. People advocating for the homeless are often not in the same riding. We have in fact set up barriers. That is what we heard from people advocating on behalf of the homeless.

This is going to land up in court and we are going to spend millions of dollars, and the thing will be thrown out anyway. In essence we are saying that Big Brother knows best. I am just curious as to why he thinks the bill with these barriers will help people exercise their franchise.

[Canada Elections Act, February 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, regarding Bill C-31 which I will speak to eventually, I did not have the luxury of hearing my colleague speak because of his self-inflicted censorship. He knows that the committee heard witness statements from people who represent the homeless, aboriginal people and students. They were very concerned with what was being put forward in this bill, that a voter would have to find a person to vouch for the voter if the voter was not able to present photo identification or two pieces of identification that was recognized as legitimate by the government. In the present system a person can vouch for a voter by identifying who the voter is and that would be fine. As the member knows, the bill restricts it and only one person on the voters list in that particular riding and poll is able to do that.

The member knows from the testimony that witnesses were asked specifically about what effect this would have on the homeless who move around quite frequently and do not have proper identification. I asked if people would lose their ability to vote in the circumstances as presented. In other words, a homeless person who has to have someone vouch for him or her would not have that benefit because the person vouching for the homeless person may be an advocate who might be on the voters list but does not live in the riding in question. There would be a barrier to homeless people being able to vote.

The member was in committee and heard the testimony of those who advocate for the homeless, aboriginal people and students. Does the member not understand that the witnesses highlighted this barrier and said we should not do that? If the member believes them and not me, then why is he supporting this bill and why is he not supporting the amendments I put forward for a statutory declaration? In other words, do we not trust Canadians? Are we so big brother and paternalistic in this place that we decide what is good for them? I am curious as to what the member thinks about that.

[Canada Elections Act, February 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to note that while it is the government's point of view that it is going to the people and consulting, it is interesting to note that the Conservatives did this after Christmas when they were looking for replacements because their five priorities, according to them, had been completed. The government was searching for new ideas.

The government was circumventing what it knew was a proposal the NDP was putting forward to the House of Commons. My colleague has mentioned that and we will be debating it in the House.

With respect to my colleague from the Ottawa Valley, I beg to differ in terms of the integrity of the process. The Conservatives will have the process controlled, as my colleague said, by the PMO. They did this seemingly out of nowhere. It was not debated in the House. It certainly had been debated in committee. The previous government had failed to do it. We want the process to be owned by Parliament and not announced by a minister right after Christmas to denote that the government is actually doing something on this issue.

My party begs to differ on the integrity of the intent of where the government is going with consultation. We will deal with that for sure next week. There will be a debate on that point.

I would like to ask my colleague about the whole process of having first nations vote. Are there barriers in the bill to first nations? Have we heard from first nations at committee what an election will mean for the people in her region? If so, will it be a barrier that changes the legislation? What does the member think the outcome will be in terms of voter participation for aboriginal people? What kind of action does she think will be taken by aboriginal people themselves or people who advocate for them in terms of a legal process or procedure?

[Canada Elections Act, February 16th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, as a committee member, one of the concerns that I had about the bill was on the issue of access to voting and potential barriers that the bill would create for people who, because of life circumstances, would not be able to exercise their franchise.

I brought this point forward to the committee by way of the testimony from witnesses. I moved amendments and brought the amendments forward to report stage so that people who, for reasons of circumstance, would not have the photo ID or the access to two pieces of identification, as would be recognized by Elections Canada.

To be very clear about it, the bill does say that people would be allowed to vote if they had someone there to vouch for them. The problem is that the person vouching would need to be on the voter's list in that particular poll.

Having heard testimony from aboriginal people and from people who advocate on behalf of the homeless and students, we know this will be problematic. We know that people in homeless shelters are often not there for very long. We also know that the people who are advocates working on their behalf often do not reside in the same riding, let alone the same poll, and therefore will not be on the voter list.

We have a predicament here. We have a bill, that seemingly and sadly will be passed, that will put barriers in front of Canadians and potentially disenfranchise people.

We could take this one step further. Duff Conacher from Democracy Watch said that we could have a Florida on our hands. He simply stated that if people were to challenge their right to vote and the results were close in any particular riding, and we have a minority Parliament, we could be setting up a situation similar to the one recently in the United States where it was not the people of the United States who decided who the president was, it was the supreme court. Certainly no one wants to go down that route.

I am not suggesting that will happen. I am simply pointing out some of the barriers and asking why, in goodness' name, would we go down that route when there are other solutions for potential voter fraud.

I just want to mention that the Chief Electoral Officer, whom we lauded so well, mentioned at committee that the problem that was being suggested by committee members was not a problem, and I agree. We need to look at whether this is a real problem. An analogy would be ripping off our roof because we might have a draft in the basement window. However, if we have the Chief Electoral Officer saying that and we have problems around access to voting, and we have, as Duff Conacher said, a potential where we will have an outcome that will be challenged and therefore putting our whole system in peril, what are we to do?

I would just like his comments on that notion that this could actually put more barriers in front of Canadians.