Pierre Poilievre

[Fair Elections Act, May 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the member was a great minister in the democratic reform portfolio. He also presided over crown corporations. He has a very distinguished record, and I thank him for the question and the kind words.

On the issue of voter identification, here is the fundamental difference between what the fair elections act proposes today and what existed in the last election. In the last election, people could go in with no ID whatsoever and cast a ballot by having someone vouch for who they were. That form of identity vouching is gone. Every single person who votes will have to present a piece of identification showing who they are before they vote. If that ID does not have an address on it, they can co-sign an oath with another elector as to their address. However, there is a big difference. From now on, the list of oath takers will be put before the eyes of Elections Canada right after the election to find out if there are duplicates so that we can catch people who voted more than once. There will be a $50,000 fine for taking a false oath. Potentially, jail time could come along with that. There would be an external auditor to make sure that Elections Canada actually follows these legal requirements.

Because we will have required people to show ID proving who are before taking that oath, unlike under the status quo, if they have lied or cheated, we will be able to track them down. Under the previous model of vouching, where people could go in without any ID whatsoever and have someone vouch for who they were, if the system showed that they had voted more than once or had cheated in some way, we might not ever be able to track them down, because their identity had not been established. In other words, they could simply lie about who they were. There was no picture of them. There was no record of their existence. They literally vanished into thin air as though they never existed, but their vote was counted. That vote would have cancelled out the legitimate vote of an honest voter. That is another way of disenfranchising someone.

We are eliminating that practice and that possibility by requiring every single person to show their ID, by checking the list of oath takers for duplicates to catch people who vote more than once, and by having an external auditor oversee all of it so that we can ensure that Elections Canada actually follows its own rules.

[Fair Elections Act, May 13th, 2014]

Yes, Mr. Speaker, there was Ian Lee, who is a respected professor in Ottawa. The Lortie Commission, which did a very thorough study on election law, suggested that there should be an independent commissioner, and that is what we have done. Through the fair elections act, the commissioner would be independent from the elected government, political parties, and Elections Canada.

Keep in mind that there are about three dozen offences in the act that would relate to the conduct of Elections Canada officials. How could he possibly investigate potential offences by officials within the organization for which he works? It is impossible. A basic precept of good governance is that enforcement is independent and separate and that people do not investigate themselves. The investigator should make his own decisions and have a free hand, and that is the decision we have made in the fair elections act.

[Fair Elections Act, May 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the member addressed two issues. One is the issue of voting without ID. Under the status quo, people can vote without any ID whatsoever by having someone vouch for who they are. That is over. That is done. It is not coming back. It is a major improvement to require every single voter to present ID when he or she casts a ballot. I respect that he takes a different point of view, and though we are on opposite sides of that, I do not question his well-intentioned approach.

On the issue of the independence of the commissioner, there are two different functions. One is administration and the other is enforcement. The job of Elections Canada is to administer elections. If members read the Neufeld report, they will see that the administration had serious problems in the last election. There were 165,000 serious irregularities that represented breaches of practice, and that cannot continue. That is why we are focusing Elections Canada on its core job, which is to properly administer elections.

As for enforcement, there are two parts to enforcement. One is prosecution and the other is investigation. In the past, those two functions have been housed not only in the same office but in the same person. Prior to 2005, one person was both prosecutor and investigator. What we are proposing now is that they not be in the same person but in the same office. The prosecutor will be responsible, when charges are recommended, for taking those charges before the courts, but the investigator will be completely independent of Elections Canada and will be able to exercise a free hand in seeking out wrongdoing. All that we have seen over the last several years suggests that this independence is needed and that it will be a major improvement when it is achieved.

[Fair Elections Act, May 13th, 2014]

moved that Bill C-23, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other Acts and to make consequential amendments to certain Acts, be read the third time and passed.

Mr. Speaker, here we are arising to debate at third reading the fair elections act. This has been an excellent process in considering the democracy that we have been fortunate to inherit from our ancestors in this country, to build upon its foundations and to make it even better.

Today, we have before the House the fair elections act, a bill widely supported by the Canadian people, based on the principle of fairness and universal suffrage. It would make it easier for law-abiding Canadians to vote and harder to break the law. It would make it easier for law-abiding Canadians to contribute more financially to democracy while making it harder for special interest groups to break election finance laws. It would make it more difficult to vote illegally or fraudulently while giving new opportunities for Canadian voters to cast their ballots conveniently throughout an election campaign.

The bill has been subject to a great deal of debate, a variety of opinions, and some modest amendments, which built upon the foundations of the original document; so let us review now the final product that the House will consider with its vote on the bill tonight.

To start with, Canadians would be required to bring ID when they cast their ballots. In the last election, it was possible for people to arrive at their voting location without a single piece of ID and cast their ballot by having someone else vouch for their identity. Identity vouching would be no more. Every single Canadian voter would be required to bring ID showing who they are before they vote.

Beyond that, there would be a safety valve in the system to help those people whose address may not appear on their identification. For example, in communities throughout rural Alberta, Canadians often have driver's licences that do not contain a home address, but rather a post office box. That creates complications at the voting booth. In such circumstances, or ones like it, the voter would be allowed to co-sign an oath with another voter from the same polling division who does have ID and proof of residence in hand, to confirm the residency of the voter.

There would be a list of oath takers, and Elections Canada would be required by law to check that list for duplicates. Duplicates would of course be evidence of multiple voting. If that occurred, it would automatically be sent over to the commissioner, whose job it is to investigate breaches of the Canada Elections Act. Signing of a false oath or using oaths to vote more than once would subject a voter to a $50,000 fine or up to five years in prison.

There would also be a mandatory external audit to examine whether or not Elections Canada followed all of these procedures. That is particularly important, considering the abysmal record of the agency in managing the vouching process during the last election. The agency had roughly 50,000 irregularities linked to vouching last time, and 165,000 irregularities throughout the organization in other areas of its management on election day. This mandatory external audit would hold the agency accountable for this kind of mismanagement and these sorts of irregularities. That is an enormous step forward. Those protections were not in place in the last election, nor was a mandatory ID required.

The presence of ID would ensure that we know who people are before they vote, so that if they, for example, misused, abused, or misled in the taking of an oath, we would be able to track them down afterwards, having actually seen their identification.

Under the status quo, people who used vouching to commit voter fraud might never have been tracked down because they never provided ID and their identify is therefore not even registered in the system. These new safeguards would prevent against abuse, and they would embed a very simple principle into our system: if people want to vote, they must present ID.

I realize that this position is contentious within the House. The NDP and the Liberals believe that people should be allowed to vote with no ID whatsoever, that they should be able to walk in and have someone vouch for their identity. I disagree, and so do Canadians. Before I even announced that there would be some amendments to this bill, 87% of Canadians believed that identification should be required in order to vote. We agree with that 87%.

In addition to requiring ID, we would eliminate a form of identification that has proven unreliable and susceptible to abuse. In the last couple of elections, the agency has allowed voters to use their voter information card as a form of ID. This card is error-ridden. It has millions of mistakes. Some voters even get more than one of them, allowing for multiple voting to occur.

In the last election, there were errors with 12%, or roughly 1 in 6, of these voter information cards. Even today, the Chief Electoral Officer says there is a roughly 6% error rate within the voter information cards. That percentage might not sound like a lot, until we consider that there are 25 million voters in Canada, so off the top of my head, 6% equals almost 2 million errors in those cards. That presents an unacceptably high level of risk. As a result the fair elections act would end the use of the voter information card as a form of ID.

Furthermore, the fair elections act would close financial loopholes that have allowed some powerful interests to get around the donation limits. Some years ago, the House of Commons passed into place, with a great deal of consensus, restrictions on the amount that people could give and the sources from which those funds could come. Corporate and union money was no longer allowed. Individual donors were restricted to $1,000 a year. With inflation, that is about $1,200 now.

The problem is that some have found loopholes. Liberal leadership candidates, for example, took enormous loans from powerful interests and just never repaid them. In essence, those loans are identical in their effect to illegal donations. For some reason, Elections Canada did not pursue an investigation into this breach of the law, and these Liberals were allowed to get away with that practice.

New Democrats, on the other hand, were particularly creative. They invited people to leave enormous donations in excess of the donation limit in their testaments or in their wills. The NDP received hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations bequeathed to them because the limits did not apply to dead people. Although dead people cannot vote, they can contribute under the status quo. The fair elections act would put a nail in that coffin and end the practice of dead donors. From now on, wills and testaments would be subject to the same donation limits as those applied to living Canadians.

All this is designed to end the abuse and the loopholes that have permitted big money to creep back into our electoral system. We understand that big money can drown out the voices of everyday Canadians. That is why our laws would attempt to restrict the flow of that money. It is so that parties can never take enough money from one donor to require them to be indebted to that donor with their public policy decision making.

These rules, whether to prevent voter fraud or to keep out unacceptably large donations, would be useless without enforcement. That is why the fair elections act would strengthen enforcement by making the chief investigator of election law independent. We would be giving him sharper teeth, a longer reach, and a freer hand.

Sharper teeth means that he would have tougher penalties for existing offences. A longer reach means that he would have many new offences to crack down on big money, voter fraud, and other forms of abuse. A freer hand means that he would be completely independent.

Right now, the commissioner is subject to the control of the CEO. The CEO picks his staff, directs his investigations, hires him, and can fire him at any time without cause, according to the law. This is not independence.

The fair elections act would give the commissioner control of his own staff and his own investigation, and guarantee that he cannot be fired without cause. That is the kind of independence the Canadian people expect from a chief investigator. I expect that independence would vastly improve the quality and consistency of enforcement that Canadians enjoy in their electoral system.

One of the best ways to ensure that people do not break the rules is to make those rules known and consistently applied. For example, if the agency were to allow a practice for many years and then change its mind suddenly, as it has been known to do, then it is hard for political actors to know which set of rules they are supposed to follow. As a result, the fair elections act would require the CEO to issue legal interpretations and advance rulings on requests from political parties.

For example, if a party is unclear as to how the agency would enforce a certain rule, it could send a request for an advance ruling to ask the CEO if its plan to do a, b, c, and d would be allowed. The CEO would be required to respond within a confined time period, and the party would then be able to use that advance ruling to carry out its actions in compliance. The ruling would be binding on Elections Canada.

In other words, the agency would not be allowed to tell a party that something is allowed and then change its mind after the fact. Furthermore, it would set a precedent so that all parties could follow the same practice as one party had been allowed to do. In other words, there would be one set of rules for everybody. This is a massive improvement and it represents the use of an ounce of prevention instead of a pound of punishment.

The democracy we enjoy should never be taken for granted. All of us have been given this sacred opportunity to choose who shall govern our country. Unfortunately, many Canadians choose not to exercise that right. One of the biggest obstacles to voter participation, according to Elections Canada, is a lack of basic information about how to participate.

Now most Canadians understand that they can vote on election day. That knowledge is widely understood. However, half of young people are not aware that one can vote before election day. A poll by Elections Canada showed that three-quarters of aboriginal youth were not aware that they could vote before election day, through an advance ballot, a mail-in ballot, or by going to the Elections Canada local office on any day throughout the campaign.

That knowledge would be useful in helping people get out and vote who are too busy, out of town, working, or having family or health obstacles. That is why the fair elections act would focus Elections Canada's advertising on where, when, and how to vote.

In fact, with the passage of the fair elections act, the agency would only be allowed to advertise on the basics of voting. That is a change from the system right now, and it would ensure that the information the people of Canada receive from their election agency is relevant to their role.

Finally, for the vote to matter, it has to be honoured. Under the status quo, Elections Canada is able to attempt to remove a member of Parliament, through suspension, from the House of Commons if there is a financial dispute over election spending.

I think all of us agree that if someone flagrantly and deliberately breaks election law in order to be elected, that person should be suspended, but we have to make sure that the allegation is in fact true before reversing the decision of thousands of voters by the edict of one agency head. Therefore, the fair elections act will allow any member of Parliament whose financial claims are disputed by the agency to exhaust all levels of legal appeal in the courts before the CEO can come to Parliament and ask for that MP's suspension. This is altogether fitting and proper. It is not right for an agency head to attempt to overturn the results of a democratic election and to cancel out the votes of tens of thousands of voters unless and until a judge has agreed with the allegation the CEO has presented. The fair elections act will imbed that required judicial proceeding in place, rather than the current system, which is undemocratic and unfair to voters.

We in this party and in this government believe that voting should be as easy as possible. That is why we are adding an additional day of voting during which Canadians can show up and cast their ballots in advance, in case they are not able to do so on election day.

This is a summary of the changes we are putting forward before the Canadian people. They have been widely debated and thoroughly considered in the committees of both the House and the Senate, and now we move forward to decision day. Having had all of this debate and having considered some modest but fair changes, it is time for people to decide.

This bill will allow Elections Canada to focus on its core mandate of running elections fairly and efficiently while removing from its mandate aspects that really do not belong with the agency at all. It is a major step forward for democracy. It will protect the independence of our elections, and it will allow the Canadian people to have full confidence in the apparatus constructed to carry out the vote on election day.

I invite members of all parties, having carefully considered it, to vote in favour of the fair elections act tonight and to celebrate it as a step forward in the evolution of Canadian democracy, building upon our long-standing traditions and democratic heritage to move our country forward into the future of its democracy.

[Democratic Reform, May 12th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the Commissioner of Canada Elections conducted an exhaustive investigation into this matter. He found that nothing happened. The investigation proves that the allegations by the New Democrats and other partisan individuals were false. It is time for the NDP leader to stand up in the House and apologize for those false allegations.

[Democratic Reform, May 12th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the Commissioner of Canada Elections conducted an extremely extensive and lengthy investigation into the allegations that the member across the way found, and we came to the conclusion that there was nothing to get to the bottom of.

As for the powers of that commissioner, he has the same powers of investigation as any police force would have.

[Fair Elections Act, May 12th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it is not the job of Elections Canada to run campaigns. The job of Elections Canada is to inform people where, when, and how to vote. That is what the fair elections act will require all of the agency's advertising to focus on.

We supported an amendment to permit programs in high schools because basically that is consistent with the where, when, and how to vote objective of the agency. Students in pre-adulthood are not really aware of how voting happens; these programs, which basically allow mock elections at schools, would give them that basic information so that when they graduate, they know what elections are about, how they work, and what one does to cast a ballot. However, there is no question that the fair elections act would narrow the focus of the agency so that its advertising focuses on the basics of voting and on no other area.

[Fair Elections Act, May 12th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, on the first point, the NDP members have suggested that we should allow people to vote with no ID whatsoever when they arrive at the voting location. They put forward amendments to that effect, and we have eliminated that. We have ended the process of identity vouching and replaced it with a mandatory ID requirement. If people do not have an address on their ID, they can co-sign an oath as to their residency, but they cannot have their identity vouched for. They will require proof of who they are in writing by choosing from 39 different forms of ID that will help them do that.

As for the issue of recordings of automated calls and scripts, calling companies and those who use automated calls will be required to retain those recordings and those scripts for three years, and those companies will be asked to turn that information over if there is an investigation into those calls.

[Fair Elections Act, May 12th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to rise today in support of the fair elections act, a bill that would keep democracy in the hands of everyday Canadians by putting special interests on the sidelines and rule breakers out of business. It would be easier to vote and harder to break election laws. It would close loopholes to big money in the political process. It would make the rules easier to follow for honest participants in democracy and more difficult to break for those who would undermine the system.

Let us review the measures that are contained in the fair elections act. However, before we do, I am gratified by the great support this bill has received from the beginning from across the country. Polling data indicated that even before our government announced its willingness to amend some of its measures, Canadian people overwhelmingly supported the contents of this legislation.

Let me start with the section that has garnered the most public support, and that is the government's decision to protect our system against voter fraud by ensuring that every single voter who casts a ballot uses ID to do so.

Previously, it was possible for people to walk in to vote at their local polling station and, without presenting a single piece of ID, identify themselves through a process called “vouching” and cast their ballot. Under the fair elections act, that would not longer be possible. All voters, regardless of whether they have someone vouching for them, would be required to produce identification demonstrating who they are. If that identification does not have an address on it, as increasingly ID lacks, the voters would be able to co-sign an oath with another elector as to where they live. That being said, after the election is done, Elections Canada would be required to compile a list of all oath-takers to check for duplicates in order to find out if somebody voted more than once through this process. There would be a mandatory external audit that would be required by law to ensure that Elections Canada follows all of these steps as they are laid out in the legislation.

The unreliable and often inaccurate voter information card would no longer be acceptable as a form of ID. In the last election, the cards had errors in about one in six cases. That meant that millions of Canadians either got the wrong card, no card, more than one card, or a card with false information contained on it. Allowing people to use false cards of this kind for identification presents obvious risks of abuse. The information card would be returned to its original purpose, which is to provide people with information on where to cast their ballot rather than as a means to identify the person and his or her residence.

Elections Canada would have an opportunity with this bill to focus its attention on its core mandate; that is to say, running free and fair elections. The bill would remove from the scope of the agency's mandate those things that are not really core functions of an election agency. For example, investigations of alleged breaches of the act would no longer be within the scope of Elections Canada's mandate. The investigator would become independent, and would serve in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. That might bring back memories because prior to 2005 the investigator and the prosecutor were not only in the same office, they were the same person. That process worked reasonably well, but the missing ingredient all along has been independence. The fair elections act would ensure that the investigator is completely independent; that is, independent from the elected government, independent from political parties, and independent from Elections Canada.

In other words, all the actors who could potentially be investigated for allegations of wrongdoing under the act would be explicitly removed from any involvement in the office of the investigator.

Not only would the investigator have the power to choose his or her own staff, direct his or her own investigations, and serve for a fixed term without being fired without cause, he or she would also be guaranteed that the office would not be occupied by former employees of parties or Elections Canada. This independence would help ensure a high standard of integrity in the enforcement of the legislation.

Another step toward greater consistency with Elections Canada is the requirement for the agency to issue legal interpretations and advanced rulings. Under the existing situation the agency is not required to provide written interpretations of law or to give parties clear answers to questions about what is allowed and what is not. The fair elections act would require the agency to issue advanced rulings to political parties seeking to understand how the rules apply.

As one can imagine, the Canada Elections Act is an extremely complex statute. At times, political parties are not sure exactly what the rules mean or how they will be interpreted, more importantly, by the agency. The fair elections act would require the agency to write down advanced rulings within a confined time period. Those rulings would act as a precedent for all parties. This would allow for a new standard of consistency across party lines for the application of rules. In other words, if one party asks if a practice is allowed and Elections Canada says yes, then that decision will set a precedent and all parties will be able to follow that precedent and comply with the law in the same way as the original party. This is a major improvement over the status quo.

For the CEO to seek the removal of a member of Parliament over a financial dispute about an election filing, he or she would first have to allow that member of Parliament to exhaust all legal challenges. This is another improvement. In other words, judges must be empowered to rule on these financial disputes between elected MPs and the agency before the head of the agency overturns an election result. This would protect the sanctity of the vote, remembering that it is not agency heads who pick members of Parliament but voters. The fair elections act would ensure that voters remain in charge of that process.

Elections Canada would also be required to focus all of its advertising on the basics of voting: where, when, and what ID to bring. It would also be required to advertise specifically to people with disabilities about the special tools available to help them cast their ballots. For example, it would be important for a paraplegic to know that there is a wheelchair ramp located at the voting location. It would be important for someone who is visually impaired to know that Braille services are available. Many of these Canadians are not aware of these services. This law would require the agency to inform them, so that not only would they have the services that they need, but they would know about them before they cast their ballot.

Finally, the fair elections act would add an additional day for voting. Many Canadians are too busy to cast their ballot on election day itself, so the fair elections act would give them an extra day in the lead-up to that voting day in order to cast their ballot and participate in democracy.

The bill in essence would make it easier to vote and harder to break the law. The rules would be clear, consistent, and easy to follow. Once and for all, Canadians would be required to bring identification to prove who they are before they cast their ballot.

These steps move in the right direction and the Canadian people overwhelmingly support them.

[Fair Elections Act, May 8th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is complaining that we did not give unelected people the power to draft the bill, but we live in a democracy. Elected officials make the laws. That is why we have put forward a bill that Canadians support. The fundamental principles of the bill are overwhelmingly supported by Canadians.

Those principles are as follows: voters must show identification in order to vote; investigators should be independent; and Elections Canada advertising should focus solely on where, how and when to vote.

Those are common sense principles and Canadians agree. In a democracy, elected officials make the laws. I am proud to live here, in this democracy, and to help pass a bill that will make it even better.