Stephen Harper

[Canada Elections Act, November 25th, 1996]

moved:

Motion No. 8

That Bill C-63 be amended, in Clause 12, by replacing line 41 on page 4 with the following:

"referred to in subparagraph 71.011(a)(ii) or (iii). The"

[Petitions, November 25th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, it is my duty to present a petition signed by 100 residents of the city of Calgary. These petitioners believe that the 7 per cent GST on reading material is unfair and wrong.

They ask Parliament to zero rate books, magazines and newspapers under the GST and the proposed harmonized sales tax. They ask the Prime Minister to carry out his party's repeated and unequivocal promise to remove federal sales tax from books, magazines and newspapers.

[Translation]

[Canada Elections Act, November 25th, 1996]

moved:

Motion No. 6

That Bill C-63, in Clause 2, be amended by replacing line 28 on page 2 with the following:

"polling day in the case of a general election or the forty- seventh day in the case of a by-election."

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise on Motion No. 6 which stands in my name. The motion concerns the length of a campaign for byelections under the new proposed regime.

Let me reiterate what has been said on the length of the election period. Our party has indicated that we are prepared to support in principle the shortening of an election campaign. I have said that is my preference.

The proposal in this bill is that we move to a 36 day election calendar. That is one of the three main features of Bill C-63. This has been a longstanding proposal in that for a number of years there has been some pressure from the public and from political parties to shorten the election campaign period if possible. In the past, technical difficulties in terms of the ability of Elections Canada to implement a shortened electoral period have prevented the shortening of the period below the current 47 days. Mr. Speaker, you may recall in your political life that the campaign was longer than 47 days.

The Lortie commission heard a lot of submissions on this subject. At that time my party was not particularly supportive of shortening the campaign period although many who made submissions to the commission were. The Lortie commission had suggested it was possible to move to a 40 day election campaign.

What is the origin of the 36 day campaign in this bill? It is the implementation of the computerized register of electors and the ability to implement it prior to the next election by virtue of a pre-election enumeration. Thirty-six days in effect is the shortest campaign that Elections Canada felt could comfortably be executed by the people who run the campaign nationally. It is fair to say that this will cause some problems for some parties. It will certainly be a new experience for most parties but I suspect that most major political parties will be able to adjust.

There are some advantages to the new calendar. However even if one supports a 36 day election campaign there are other problems that are raised by the way it is implemented in this piece of legislation. One was addressed by the hon member for Saanich-Gulf Islands, the expense of running an initial pre-election enumeration to start the register. I will have more to say about that later in this debate.

The government is going about the implementation of this shorter period in a way that in our opinion will actually be much more expensive initially than it needs to be. This is a significant problem. Another significant problem that we raised repeatedly before the bill came to committee and in committee has been the problem of the implementation of a shortened election period for byelection campaigns. That is what this motion addresses.

There have been two kinds of problems with byelections in the past. The first is the problem this motion seeks to address and which we witnessed in this Parliament. That is the sudden calling of a byelection in a riding that was occupied by a sitting member on the government side for which there was no expectation whatsoever of a vacancy but which occurred overnight and then a snap byelection was called to deal with the situation. These have always been in ridings that are very favourable to the government. In the case of this Parliament they have freed up members and freed up ridings to bring in new people and to move other people on to greener pastures, be they appointments, Senate seats or whatever.

There is much to object to in this process. Obviously there is the unnecessary expense, the patronage angle and a number of things that are quite infuriating about this particular practice. It is fair to say that in the case of byelections this does create some considerable difficulty for the opposition parties even under the present calendar.

Last winter byelections were unexpectedly called in safe government ridings. They were also called at a time of the year when nobody was anticipating campaigning, in the dead of winter just at the end of the Christmas period. These situations create serious enough organizational problems as it is without moving to a 36 day campaign.

The other problem with byelections is something the Reform Party has been concerned about for years. It is the opposite problem, that byelections are held off indefinitely and ridings are kept open for extremely long periods of time for other reasons. If the government thinks it will be defeated in a particular riding it does not want to have a byelection and therefore the riding unnecessarily goes unrepresented for months and sometimes for over a year. In the last Parliament the government deliberately called byelections for a date so far into the future that it knew there would be a general election before the byelection ever occurred. There are snap byelections but this is the opposite problem.

The Reform proposal deals only with the problem of a snap byelection and deals with it only in the most peripheral way. What we propose is simply that the new 36 day campaign period would not apply to byelections. Instead the 47 day campaign would remain in effect for byelections.

I should say that our ideal proposal on this particular problem would be quite different. Our ideal proposal would give a a significant period of time between the occurrence of a vacancy and the calling of a byelection on the one hand and on the other hand it would set a maximum period of time within which a byelection must be called.

Frankly the time we have in mind for that would be something in the order of 60 days between the occurrence of a vacancy and the actual holding of a byelection and no more than six months between the occurrence of a vacancy and the holding of a byelection at the other end. The minimum period would provide the opposition parties with some assurance that a byelection will not be

called just to surprise the opposition and return a government supporter. The other provides the reasonable expectation that voters will be represented in Parliament within a reasonable period of time.

The reason we have not proposed it in this amendment is that the actual calling of a byelection as opposed to the campaign period falls under the Parliament of Canada Act rather than the Canada Elections Act. That makes it impossible for us to put forward our ideal proposal in this particular piece of legislation.

It was pointed out during our discussion in committee that technically speaking, because it is in the Parliament of Canada Act, our ideal proposal falls outside the scope of this legislation. It does fall outside the scope of this legislation and the principles of this legislation, but it certainly does not fall outside the subject matter of the legislation because this bill affects the process for byelections in quite an intimate way. However as the legislation is drafted, this falls outside its scope.

I return to the comment I made on Friday which is that this House has not approved this bill in principle. It has only approved it for committee study. The bill went to committee. The purpose of committee study before second reading is supposed to be to examine all aspects of the bill including material that while within the subject matter of the bill may fall outside of its scope.

I am disappointed that this issue was not addressed during the committee hearings. I still hold out some hope that we will consider this issue before we complete our deliberations on this bill here in the House.

I urge the House to support this particular motion which improves the bill in a very small way. It does not force a byelection to be held. It does not even force a byelection to be delayed. It simply says that a byelection campaign should be at least 47 days in length. I put that to the House for its consideration.

[Canadian Volunteer Service Medal For United Nations Peacekeeping Act, November 25th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure and honour to debate Bill C-300, an act respecting the establishment and award of the Canadian volunteer service medal and clasp for United Nations peacekeeping to Canadians serving with the United Nations peacekeeping force. The award as envisaged by the promoter of the bill does not restrict itself merely to those who serve in traditional armed forces capacities but also would include people involved in peacekeeping areas such as policing, local administration, the delivery of aid, medical assistance or even election assistance.

I want to speak to this bill because I strongly support it. The bill is a well thought out initiative that recognizes the realities of the future. We know that the world is changing. We know we are entering a new era. Increasingly we see signs that peacekeeping in the wider sense, not just the traditional sense, will become a more and more important function of our armed forces and many other armed forces in the world.

We have traditionally focused our recognition and awards on traditional combat roles and traditional war theatres. It is time to update some of the recognition and awards. Domestically we are prepared to have medals and recognition that are more appropriate to the future roles that is seen for our armed forces.

In speaking in favour of this bill I would like to pay tribute to the member for Saanich-Gulf Islands very briefly. He has brought this bill forward and is one of my colleagues who is retiring at the end of this Parliament. I want to pay tribute to him for bringing this bill forward. He was a distinguished member of the armed forces who has been a great help to us. It has been a pleasure for all of us on both sides of the House to have him here. He is closing out his career by participating in the ultimate phoney war back and forth across the House of Commons and has been willing to act as our deputy whip, perhaps also to engage in his last peacekeeping assignment.

The bill has an interesting history, as other members have pointed out. For some time voices have been calling for this kind of award.

In the last Parliament this initiative was supported through the introduction of two private members' bills. The House of Commons Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs called for the establishment of a Canadian volunteer service medal for United Nations peacekeeping. That committee was made up of the Liberal Party, now the present government, the Progressive Conservative Party and the New Democratic Party. Those were commitments which those parties made in a unanimous report. Endorsement for this has come from the Canadian Peacekeeping Veterans Association and the Canadian Association of the United Nations Peacekeeping Chapter.

Other countries already have similar awards: Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, Ghana and, of course, the United States.

I could go on to mention the various groups that have pressed for this award: many members of the government, all parties, past and present, municipalities and petitioners. I will not dwell too much on that because I have a limited amount of time and I want to speak about other issues.

Mr. Speaker, I have a base in my riding which is being gradually relocated to your city. I am sure that is a coincidence on your part. However, the base is being relocated. During my time as a member of Parliament, having the military in my riding has given me a chance to deal with military personnel on a wide range of issues, including their experiences with peacekeeping assignments.

In my dealings with the military I have always been impressed with their commitment to their various engagements, including their peacekeeping engagements. In that context I want to express my concern about the previous failure to approve this bill. I hope that this time the government will approve it.

Bill C-258 was a non-votable bill when it was introduced by the hon. member for Saanich-Gulf Islands in the last session. As a non-votable bill the official representatives of the ministry spoke against it for what I consider to be the flimsiest of reasons. Basically the excuse was that Government House has a process for this and that process should be followed, that there is a decorations committee which has a process and that the United Nations has a process and we are partly involved in that process. They were all excuses based on these processes.

It amazes me how fast the government is to send people into conflict and how slow it is to recognize their contributions, whether it is in wartime or in peacekeeping missions. Reading over the debates from this session and from the last session when we debated Bill C-258, one is really struck by the glacial speed at which governments make decisions to recognize the contributions of our military.

Dieppe, Hong Kong, the merchant marine: we are talking about coming to terms with the full recognition of some of these activities a full 45 to 50 years after the events. In the case of Somalia, we have dragged our heels both in recognizing the contributions our peacekeepers made and also in finding out exactly what happened during the unfortunate incidents which occurred there. Of course, in that process the reputation of everyone who served has been tainted.

We are tremendously slow in dealing with the real contributions that military people make, yet not only are we quick to send them, we are quick to mobilize the resources of the state to make sure that the contributions of a handful of people are always recognized. The Prime Minister is recognized when he is at the United Nations or when he calls the President of the United States. He is getting the best publicity for his contribution. Our diplomats are being fully recognized. We have had some outstanding generals who have played particular roles in these missions. We make sure that they receive their full recognition and honour here in the House or at Government House or wherever else. However, we have been consistently slow in recognizing the real contribution of our military people. These people go into these situations, often risking their lives. In many cases they are dangerously under-equipped, assuming not just the risk of the mission but additional risks imposed on them by the general mismanagement of our armed forces over the past 20 years.

I have always been impressed by the fact that whenever one of these missions is called or conceived-somebody's brainchild somewhere-at how quickly the military people are to get their bags packed, to come out saying publicly from the general right on down to the private that they are ready to do, they feel confident and they are looking forward to the challenge.

Everyone who deals with the military knows that most of the time these people know that there are no clear rules of engagement. Half the time there is not a clear objective. Almost all the time they are grossly under-equipped, grossly undermanned and in great danger. Privately they will tell you about these concerns and they are always bothered by the fact that these concerns are not taken seriously, but they are good soldiers.

Good soldiers do not complain publicly, they just do it and this should be recognized. It is about time we started to recognize these things. I must admit I am very tired of this attitude, this tendency to praise people at certain levels and then to not recognize fully the people who do the work.

We are coming out of an era finally where it seems to be a noble thing for Liberal politicians to spend other people's money so they could get credit for presumably fixing problems. I am glad we are finally starting to come out of that era and to recognize that money cannot fix everything and furthermore it is not necessarily the government's money to start with.

I see this attitude still with us in military operations and military policy. Somehow it is noble for the Prime Minister or for the government or for others to be willing to put other people's lives at risk in order to solve or deal with military and humanitarian situations around the world. Let us not forget whose lives are at risk and who are making the contributions. It is the men and women on the ground and their leaders and commanders. That is on what this bill is focused.

Let me conclude by saying that rather than hear once again in this debate all about the processes and all about the impediments to getting this approved, the protocol and the fact that Government House should be first, let us just get on with doing on the basis of recognition what we do not hesitate to do whenever the telephone rings from New York or from the United Nations. Let us recognize our peacekeepers.

It about time that the government and the ministry got off their duffs and passed this legislation.

[Canada Elections Act, November 22nd, 1996]

My colleague says it is a Liberal consensus.

The three Reform motions in Group No. 3 deal with the proposals we put forward which I will not say were unanimously accepted in discussion. That is not the case. They were not rejected and seemed to be of interest to all parties in the committee during our discussion on this particular issue.

Our proposals were to stagger the hours beginning by moving the hours of voting back a half hour in each time zone east of British Columbia, delaying the count a further half hour for each time zone and eliminating the blackout entirely in the case of Atlantic Canada as a way of making up anything over and above the three hour difference between British Columbia and Quebec. Those are the proposals we have here. They are divided into three motions.

Motion No. 21 relates to the actual closing hours we propose which would be 8 p.m. in British Columbia; 8.30 p.m. in Alberta; 9 p.m. in Manitoba and Saskatchewan; 9.30 p.m. in Ontario and Quebec; and 9.30 p.m. as well in Atlantic Canada. Motion No. 23 would delay the vote count. That would be an additional half hour for each time zone, a delay of a half hour in Alberta, an hour in Manitoba, and an hour and a half in central Canada. Motion No. 25 proposes to limit the blackout.

Our preference would have been with staggered voting hours to completely eliminate the blackout for Atlantic Canada because frankly we could not see that this really would be an issue to anybody in the west or even in central Canada. The fact that there might be some preliminary results available from Newfoundland and the maritimes did not seem to be an issue. Therefore we were going to propose eliminating it entirely.

The only reason our amendment does not do that is that we were concerned with the limits we had in our technical drafting, that we were not able to capture some of the effects on advanced polls and special ballots. We were concerned that some of those results might circulate even before the counting had begun in some parts of the country. That is why we only limited the blackout as opposed to eliminating it but the concept is still the same.

I will be speaking at much greater length on this when we reach full debate, but I urge the government to reconsider this. The whole rationale that many in the government have given for this is that somehow it would deal with grievances in western Canada, to deal with the fact that westerners presumably know the results or that governments are elected before the polls have even closed in the west. That was stated to be one of the concerns here.

The effect of what the government is proposing is to do that by limiting the ability of western Canadians to vote. Closing the polls in British Columbia at 7 p.m. has a major impact upon prime voting hours in that province. This is terribly problematic and it is not necessary. I am very suspicious about the proposal to close the polls early in Alberta. This is not necessary in any form to deal with this problem. I am very surprised that the government threw that in. It was another anomaly in its solution.

The final anomaly I will mention is that this provision is actually allowing the count to begin in Ontario a half hour earlier than when the polls close in B.C. While technically feasible, this was in fact rejected by the member from Vancouver East who proposed the bill in the first place.

There are all kinds of anomalies in this solution, things that did not reflect the committee discussions.

The Liberals are trying to make amends by their Motions Nos. 5 and 20, both of which we will oppose. Motions Nos. 5 and 20 essentially propose to extend voting hours across the country from 11 hours to 12 hours. I would presume that is one way of giving people more time and more ability to vote.

Allowing British Columbians to vote at 7 a.m. before they have had breakfast or presumably on their way to work is not compensation for not being able to vote at a convenient time of the day. In fact it is more costly to keep the polls open longer. Elections Canada testified to that effect. I do not think adding the extra hour buys us anything or deals with the fundamental problems created by the government's proposal on this. We will be voting against those two motions because we do not feel they fix the problem and it is costly.

I have just a very brief comment on Motion No. 22 proposed by the Bloc Quebecois. I must admit that we have had some discussion and some uncertainty as to how we should deal with this. The Bloc has proposed to reverse a proposal in the bill that requires

employers to give only three hours to vote instead of four hours. The motion would put it back to four hours.

We will be opposing this motion. We are torn because we think it should be three hours. Four hours is too long and too much of an imposition on employers. I would point out that with the hours as they are in British Columbia, having only three hours is going to cause a fairly serious problem in terms of logistics for people trying to vote and also getting time off work from their employer, particularly if they travel some distance from work to home, which is often the case in Vancouver and some parts of rural B.C.

[Canada Elections Act, November 22nd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise to discuss the motions in Group No. 3. Group 3 contains a number of motions and I will try to address all of them in my comments. There are three Reform motions, two Liberal motions and one presented by the Bloc Quebecois.

All these motions deal with the attempt to incorporate provisions in this legislation that would stagger voting hours. We discussed this issue not when we addressed Bill C-63 in the House previously but when we addressed Bill C-307, a private member's bill.

That private member's bill was passed by the House in principle, although it is more than fair to say, based on the record, that Reform Party members indicated our grave reservations about the approach advocated in the bill. We only approved it in principle for the purpose of further discussing the proposal in committee and arriving at a consensus.

We did not arrive at a consensus on these issues. The government chose to go ahead with a proposal that is substantially different from what was passed in Bill C-307. It is substantially different in at least two ways. It altered the hours for voting that were proposed in Bill C-307, moving them up so that not only are we cutting into prime voting hours in British Columbia but in Alberta as well.

The other change made was to reverse hours in the case of the far eastern part of the country. In Atlantic Canada the polls would actually close at earlier local times than they would in central Canada. This was not a proposal the committee heard during deliberations.

These government proposals were not even an option for consideration when the Library of Parliament researcher prepared his report for our discussion. These proposals literally came out of nowhere.

Nothing was proposed in these options that would indicate a premature closing time in Alberta. Never was it proposed in this document that the hours be earlier than 7.30 p.m. in British Columbia; nor was it ever proposed that we would actually reverse the hours in the case of the far east of the country.

We said this set of proposals needed to be studied and on which we needed to come to a consensus, but we did not. On top of that, we discussed items in our preliminary discussion which sparked considerable interest in all the parties represented on the committee and in the chief electoral officer. However, they were then entirely rejected by the government when it tabled its proposal.

The items include not just the hours but the concept of delaying the vote count in some parts of the country as a way of dealing with this problem. There was also a proposal to eliminate the blackout.

We were looking for a proposal that would involve three elements as a way of dealing with the time zone differences across the country: staggering the voting hours, staggering the vote count and a blackout. But when the government presented its proposal the last two elements completely disappeared which was a surprise to us.

More surprising were the comments by some of the government members that it was necessary to arrive at a consensus and this was how they did it. I think I speak for the Bloc and my party when I say that we were left wondering where the consensus was since only one of the parties seemed to agree with this proposal. How could this decision possibly be classified as a consensus?

[Canada Elections Act, November 22nd, 1996]

moved:

Motion No. 23

That Bill C-63 be amended, by adding after line 44 on page 27 the following new Clause:

"47.1. That part of subsection 160 (1) of the Act preceding paragraph (a) is replaced by the following:

160.(1) One and one-half hours after the close of the poll in the Newfoundland, Atlantic and Eastern time zones, one hour after the close of the poll in the Central time zone, one-half hour after the close of the poll in the Mountain time zone, and immediately after the close of the poll in the Pacific time zone, in the presence and in full view of the poll clerk and the candidates or their agents, or, if the candidates or any of them are absent, in the presence of those candidates that are present, and of at least two electors if none of the candidates are represented, the deputy returning officer shall, in the following order,"

Motion No. 25

That Bill C-63 be amended by adding after line 5 on page 35 the following new Clause:

"68.1 Subsection 328.(1) of the Act is replaced by the following:

328.(1) No person, company or corporation shall, in any electoral district before the hour fixed by or pursuant to subsection 160(1) for the counting of the votes in that electoral district, publish the result or purported result of the polling in any electoral district in Canada by radio or television broadcast, by newspaper, news-sheet, poster, billboard or handbill or in any other manner."

[Canada Elections Act, November 22nd, 1996]

moved:

Motion No. 21

That Bill C-63, in Clause 44.1, be amended by replacing lines 44 to 46 on page 25 and lines 1 to 6 on page 26 with the following: a ) between 10:30 a.m. and 9:30 p.m. if the electoral district is in the Newfoundland, Atlantic or Eastern time zone; b ) between 10:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. if the electoral district is in the Central time zone; c ) between 9:30 a.m. and 8:30 p.m. if the electoral district is in the Mountain time zone; or d ) between 9:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. if the''

[Canada Elections Act, November 22nd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to speak to the report stage amendments on Bill C-63. In doing so I would first like to summarize our position as a party on this bill because we are not having a full second reading debate, having sent the bill to committee before second reading.

Under this new process we only have a brief debate and then we come back here with a debate which combines second reading and report stage. At third reading I will have a chance to fully elaborate upon our position. I would like to comment on this process. I share many of the concerns of the hon. member for Bellechasse. I also am concerned about this process.

This process does not really allow us to fully debate legislation. We have used this new process of sending bills to committee before second reading several times. I am not sure that the opposition parties generally have found it to be satisfactory. Many of my colleagues have mentioned this to me. As a result of this new process, we never really have a full debate in principle on legislation.

In this case the bill had only a cursory debate and then was sent to committee. The purpose of sending a bill to committee before second reading is to examine a broad range of issues which are not necessarily related to the principle or contents of the bill. After all, prior to second reading the bill has not received approval in principle. That is supposed to be the concept. Of course it depends on the chairman's style, but my observation has been that we very much conduct those committees the same as we would if they were held after second reading. In other words we tend to restrict debate to the items raised in the bill.

I know for example with respect to this particular piece of legislation, some of my colleagues raised issues which were not included in the legislation. The hon. member for Bellechasse raised the issues of third party advertising and of some regulations of Quebec's electoral law. Our party raised the concept of fixed election dates. We also raised the whole concept of how this elections bill would apply to byelections.

In all cases, while we had a brief discussion, the committee basically said that these things were outside the scope and the principle of the legislation. Of course they were. The legislation had not received approval in principle. Nevertheless, we worked on the assumption that it had. That was constantly the attitude of the government.

Certainly there were things which went well beyond the subject matter, but most of the things raised were clearly within the subject matter. In the case of byelections, while not directly related to the amendments in the bill, they are actually affected by the subject matter of the legislation. These things should have been debated more thoroughly than is allowed under this process.

Another example is that we wanted to debate at some length the rationale for a 36 day campaign as opposed to 37 or 39 days. We had only the briefest of discussions on that issue and once again the attitude was that this was not the principle of the bill and we were proceeding as if the bill had been approved in principle.

I think that the process of sending bills to committees early in many cases simply allows the government to accelerate the timetable of debate rather than giving the bill a more thorough examination. That was the opposite of the intention.

I would make just a brief comment on our overall position on Bill C-63. We are going to oppose the legislation. I must be frank in saying that we are disappointed that we feel we have to do so. There are three major initiatives in the bill: the reduction of the electoral period, the creation of a permanent register and the initiative to stagger voting hours. All of these have some degree of merit, particularly the permanent register, which not only has merit but is critical.

We were unable to come to any kind of inter-party agreement on these. I think we could have if we had not been operating on an accelerated timetable. Many of the things that were discussed would have resulted in improved legislation.

I cannot speak for other parties, but on behalf of the Reform Party I can say that with a few changes we could have supported this legislation. The changes are not minor but they do not affect the principle of the legislation either. That troubles me a great deal. Maybe we will have some time to speak a little later in the debate about the process. I see my time is winding down. I would like to address the report stage amendments in the second group.

Group No. 2 includes 15 amendments, 5 moved by the Bloc Quebecois and 10 moved by the Reform Party. The five from the Bloc Quebecois concern making the date of birth a mandatory piece of information for inclusion on the register and the motions by the Reform Party remove gender as required information for the register.

I must say in all honesty that there is a bit of a technical problem with both of these being grouped together in that one does preclude the other the way they are drafted. I do not think that was the intention of either party because both the Bloc Quebecois and the Reform Party share the same position on these issues, which is that there is no necessity to include gender but there are reasons for including date of birth.

I will have time to address this very general issue later in the debate. What should guide us in constructing data registers is whether information is necessary for the purpose at hand or at least relevant. The primary consideration in constructing these databases should be whether it is necessary and relevant from the perspective of the citizen rather than some other group that may have an interest in the information.

It is quite obvious that the information on electoral lists should be relevant to a person's ability to be eligible to cast a vote. For a very long time in Canada gender has not been relevant in terms of whether or not somebody can vote in this country. On the other hand, clearly date of birth is relevant because a voter has to be at least 18 years of age. Why then are we including the one and not including the other?

If we examine the transcripts of committee meetings and comments from various members and if members had heard some of the comments that were made in camera, it becomes apparent that the guiding factor was not the needs of the electoral list or the needs of the voter. They were the perceived needs of political parties and of politicians. It was expressed over and over again that MPs found it convenient. Parties found it useful to know the gender of a voter. In some cultures, in French, and even some names in English, there are times when there is confusion, based on the first name, about whether a person is male or female. Certainly in some of the newer ethnic communities in the country names may not be obviously male or female. Because of our unfamiliarity with the names, as anglophones or francophones we do not readily know whether these persons are male or female. It makes identification harder. It can occasionally lead to an awkward situation. However, it is both a trivial and unnecessary reason for including gender.

We have had concerns raised by females living alone that electoral lists expose the fact that they are females living alone and that these lists do circulate. We all know that electoral lists can only circulate under very restricted conditions for very restricted use. The fact is that they circulate widely during elections and probably most extra circulation of lists is rarely heard about or prosecuted. This does become a piece of information conveying the gender on the voter's list. It is unnecessary and it should not be there. In the province of Alberta, for example, it is not done and this is the case in other provinces.

That is something we think should be changed. I am surprised government members were not more sensitive about the needs of women when designing this legislation. I hope they will support these amendments.

I think they have more serious and perhaps even more dubious motives for refusing to include date of birth but I will let them speak for their own position on these matters.

[Canada Elections Act, November 22nd, 1996]

moved:

Motion No. 19

That Bill C-63, in Clause 38, be amended by replacing line 37 on page 23 with the following:

"tor, surname, given names, civic ad"

Motion No. 26

That Bill C-63, in Clause 77, be amended by replacing line 42 on page 36 with the following:

"tor's surname, given names, and date of"

Motion No. 27

That Bill C-63, in Clause 78, be amended by replacing line 7 on page 37 with the following:

"the surname, given names and rank;"

Motion No. 28

That Bill C-63, in Clause 79, be amended by replacing line 20 on page 37 with the following:

"elector, the surname, given names and"