Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if unanimous consent was gained because hon. members realize I will have 10 minutes less to speak, but at any rate I am grateful to the other members present for giving their consent.
I want to start today by making a few general observations, by dealing with some philosophical points, by creating a larger framework, and then perhaps by delving a little into the details of the bill.
Our parliamentary system in Canada is derived partially from that of the United Kingdom and partially from that of the United States. This surprises some people who think it is entirely derived from the United Kingdom, but we have a written constitution like the Americans, a Senate with set membership like the Americans, and a charter of rights similar to the American bill of rights.
We can learn about the motivating spirit of our democracy by dipping into the writings of the great constitutionalists of both of the world's streams of democratic thought. From the British, for example, we can read Bagehot, Dicey, Acton and Sir Henry Maine. We can go back in history and read Blackstone. When it comes to the Americans we can look and learn from the writings of Madison, Jefferson, John Taylor of Caroline and of Alexis de Tocqueville.
I draw the attention of the House to a particular well known statement made by Thomas Jefferson. He made the observation once that the natural course of things is for liberty to give ground over time to tyranny. He then tried, through his great student Madison who was present at the constitutional convention in Philadelphia in 1789, to build institutions which would prevent that natural course of events from taking place.
I should point out that Canada's constitution was designed with exactly this purpose in mind, but unlike the Americans we had a wealth of experience upon which to draw. We had the British example and we drew upon that extensively and wisely.
The Fathers of Confederation also drew extensively upon the American example, so much so that A. V. Dicey, the great British constitutionalist, made the observation that although the preamble to the Canadian constitution, the British North America Act, talks of a constitution similar in spirit to that of the United Kingdom, the word kingdom could have been withdrawn and the word states put in its place and it would be equally true, according to Dicey. We could learn from both these examples and from what has been said by the great scholars of both these traditions.
Some of the protections in the American system for individual liberty and freedom that we built into our own system are federalism, being the most obvious and powerful example, and a Senate with a fixed membership and regional representation. Of course the British house of lords does not have a fixed membership and it does not have any form of regional representation built into it.
The dates for elections could not be postponed beyond five years. That was written into our constitution without very substantial consent within parliament itself, whereas in Britain parliament has always had the unilateral right to change the period between elections without notice. This was done in the 18th century when the period between elections was changed from the traditional level of three years to seven years which remained throughout the 19th century. It was then changed again to five years. In Canada the five year level was set.
These are all indications that we looked at the British model and saw much that was wise there, looked at the American model and saw much that was wise there, and together tried to integrate them to build truly profound protections for liberty to ensure that Canada would be the freest country in the world. To a large degree the Fathers of Confederation were successful.
We also gained, in our initial constitutional arrangement, certain benefits for liberty that were taken from the British model. I would like to cite some of those. Initially judicial review of our laws was placed in a non-resident institution, the house of lords and typically the judicial committee of the privy council. That was done to ensure that we could not have any kind of political control ultimately over rights. There was an institution that would protect us from that.
We were subjected originally to the colonial laws validity act which was designed to ensure that no law repugnant to the laws of Britain could be passed in Canada, or indeed in any of the other countries that in those days were characterized as British colonies, which would take away rights from individuals. That law was subsequently removed in 1931 by the statute of Westminster. Again, it is an indication of the number of protections that we thought were important for liberties and democracy in the country.
The most important protection in the eyes of our founders for liberty in the country was that we were a monarchy. We had a monarch chosen by the lottery of birth who, as Bagehot said, would bear the dignified portions of the government, whereas the efficient portions of governance would be carried out by the House of Commons and our Senate. This was seen as a way of ensuring a tremendous respect for liberty and a protection that would go beyond that which was available either in Britain or in the United States.
I take a bit of time to make the point that our tradition is one which is very respectful of democracy, of liberty and of the full right of participation for all Canadians regardless of their political views in the process on a level playing field. It seems to me that in recent years we have seen an erosion of some of these rights. That concerns me a great deal.
We have seen, for example, a persistent effort on the part of the current government to ensure that third party advertising is restricted as much as possible. This has been pursued with a tremendous amount of tenacity by the government in order to ensure that private parties are unable to participate in the electoral process and that competition is largely shut down.
We saw a refusal to implement legislation that would permit citizen initiation or review of legislation on the Swiss model. We saw the erosion of rights of members of parliament. We saw the extreme use in this place of votes of confidence. Everything is a confidence motion. That has had the effect of enforcing rigid party discipline and taking away the ability of members to speak their own minds freely in a way that would reflect the will of their constituents and of the Canadian people.
We also saw an absolute refusal of the government to make non-partisan appointments to the Senate or to recognize Senate elections. There was a very reluctant willingness on the part of the prior prime minister, Mr. Mulroney, to allow one elected senator from Alberta, the hon. Stan Waters, to take his seat as the voters had decided. Similar respect for the voters of Alberta has not been shown in its choice of Professor Ted Morton and of Bert Brown, who were fairly elected.
When we looked to the United States, which at one point had an appointed senate, we saw that the process of developing elected senates started when the state of Oregon elected its senators and the senate itself allowed them to sit. This led to a rapid spread of senate elections and eventually an amendment to its constitution. These are all valuable changes that would make the country more democratic. Preventing them from occurring keeps the country less democratic.
In addition to the prevention of an expansion of democracy, we see an actual clamp being put on free democratic expression and the ability of parties to compete on an equal playing field. This is what we see when we turn to the present piece of legislation and the ancestral pieces of legislation passed over the prior eight years by this government and the prior government.
There has been a systematic attempt to cut off the privileges of minor parties. If we go back to 1993, legislation was passed at that time which was clearly designed to make it impossible for two new parties, which at that point did not have substantial representation in this place, the Reform Party as it then was and the Bloc Quebecois to compete on a level playing field.
The legislation said, among other things, that if there were less than 50 candidates on the ballot the name of the party could not be placed on the ballot. The party could not issue tax receipts. The party could not have assets. Its assets would be forfeited immediately to the Receiver General for Canada and money could be spent only on activities that related to that forfeiture.
This did not of course have the intended impact which was to ensure that the Reform Party and the Bloc Quebecois could not contest an election on a level playing field or indeed on any terms at all because both parties were able to produce more than 50 members in that election. Even though the two parties for which this was intended managed to overcome the hurdle, the law remained in place and was clearly a pernicious law.
Let us consider an example. There are 75 seats in Quebec. The Bloc Quebecois naturally had more candidates than the minimum amount permitted under this legislation. However let us say there was a smaller region that wanted to put forward candidates to represent its interests, for example, a maritime rights movement. I remind the House that in the 1920s there was a maritimes rights movement which was very active and represented some very legitimate interests.
Let us say for the sake of argument that advocates of the maritime rights movement wanted to put forward candidates. There are not 50 seats in the maritime provinces, therefore they would deprived of the right to issue tax receipts, put their name on the ballot, to have assets and function in any way as a party. Yet that would be a legitimate interest.
There could be other regions of the country where the same thing could occur. I will return to this a little later, but it is interesting to note that right now the 50 candidate rule still remains law for certain provisions of the original law and has not been struck down by the courts. It is still impossible to issue tax receipts. This law does not deal with that.
No longer does a party has to forfeit its assets if it has less than 50 candidates. That is not because of anything this government has done. The original court ruling that dealt with the Figueroa case struck down that provision of the law and the government realized it was constitutionally indefensible chose not to appeal it. However it attempted to appeal the ruling that the name could go on the ballot with less than 50 candidates but it was struck down again. This time the court said a lower number had to be put into the law within six months.
The government waited until three days before the six month period and let an election go by which ensured parties could not function during that election under the new rules mandated by the court. It then puts forward an absolute minimum rule, which is applied in the minimal manner possible with the court's ruling, and allows 12 candidates as the standard for getting a name on the ballot. However it has done nothing else which the court has not forced it to do. That is clearly highly objectionable.
The minister spoke very eloquently in favour of the merits of using 12 as our number. An equally eloquent argument can be made in favour of two. However there seems to have been a consensus among small parties before the court case that 12 would be okay.
If that is such a good rule for putting names on the ballot, then why on earth is it not also acceptable to issue tax receipts, or having access to advertising that is set aside by the Canada Elections Act, and for all the other privileges? The only reason I can think of is that there is still an attempt to freeze out small parties. We have the parties which exist now but perhaps there are future problems that could arise for the government. I think the government wants to keep on ensuring that no one else can enter into this place. It wants to make it is impossible for other parties to get in.
I should point out that this is a pattern we see occurring elsewhere. It is a regrettable pattern. We are not unique in the world in having this.
I want to point out some of the dangers that can occur if we go too far down the road of trying to restrict the free right of small parties to contest elections on the same terms as the major parties.
Let us look at the United States for example. The tangle of election laws in the United States has ensured that incumbents in the house of representatives enjoy a 98% re-election rate. They are nominally the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. On some issues they differ but in many respects there are critics who say it is really one party, the incumbent party. When it comes to dealing with electoral law that is a fair statement to make.
The whole focus of American electoral law reform for the past 30 years has been to ensure that independent candidates cannot make it in. That is if a Republican is the incumbent in the seat it is hard for a Democrat to make it in and if a Democrat is the incumbent in the seat it is hard for a Republican to make it in. Therefore congress becomes a cozy little club in which there is a great deal of collegiality. It is a club in which democracy is not operating as it should, as Madison and Jefferson would have wanted it to operate. Both of men would have been absolutely appalled by this spectacle.
We can see how this works. From the point of view of a ruling party, the ideal is to have a permanent division of seats in which the smaller parties are ensured some representation and some privileges. However they never actually contest the ability of the dominant party to control at least half the house and therefore 100% of the legislation in the house. This is absolutely contrary to the beliefs of our founders, the Fathers of Confederation. This is a terrible shame.
While I do not think it is intention of the government to take us down the same road as the Americans, the danger is there. The government ought to reconsider very carefully what it is doing. We are well on our way down that road.
I do not think Canada wants to head in this direction. I would never impugn that kind of motive to anybody. The danger is a country could wind up with the kind of situation that existed in Poland in the mid part of this century, from the late 1940s to 1989, with the de facto one party rule.
There were three parties represented in the Polish Sejm, that is the Polish Diet or legislature. The three parties were the Polish United Workers Party or the Communist Party, then the United Peasant Party and the Democratic Party which were smaller parties that had a limited number of seats, no influence on legislation and served essentially to provide the illusion that there was a functioning multiparty democracy.
That is the extreme. I do not believe Canada is heading that far but that is the model we have to avoid. The government should be proactively saying what it can do to ensure that smaller parties have the right to contest elections on exactly equal and fair terms with the larger parties like the Canadian Alliance, the Liberal Party and the other parties represented here.
When we heard the testimony that was given at committee by the leaders of the Christian Heritage Party, the Communist Party and the Green Party, we heard tremendously eloquent and thoughtful people. They were presenting points of view that were not the same point of view that the minister nor I share. However they were profoundly intelligent points of view that deserved to be heard by the Canadian people on exact and equal terms.
If Canadians decide that they should put their trust in one of those parties, the parties should have the right to receive that trust. Those parties must have the right to present their case on exactly the same terms that those of us who are here today enjoy. Anything less is undemocratic, unfair and unacceptable to the spirit in which our constitution was crafted and to the spirit that is the heart of every Canadian, which is that this is a truly free, truly democratic, truly pluralist country in which every point of view is valid unless it is intolerant or hate filled. None of the people who represent those parties have that kind of sentiment or intolerance.
We need to set an example that shows that we are, as our founders intended us to be, the freest and most generous country in the world. Anything less is unacceptable and that makes this bill unacceptable. I urge every member of the House to consider those facts and to vote against the bill.
