Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent. Come to think of it, Louis St. Laurent was a former prime minister of Canada.
Listening to the member for Mississauga—Streetsville and his view of the functions of committee, Canadians watching closely who are not very careful will end up believing in Cinderella and the fairy godmother.
We had omnibus bills before the finance committee for which we had 3,000 amendments. We voted for 55 hours, and the Conservatives did not accept one single amendment. Now they try to tell us today how wonderful it is in committee.
I am proud of the member for Hamilton Centre, the riding adjoining mine, for standing up for democracy as we understand it to be and for stopping these people from trying to force through a bill that is tainted, that is wrong.
I always try to look for what is good in people, and so far that approach has served me well in life. I sincerely believe that many of the members of the Conservative government who sought office to be members of Parliament did so to serve Canadians, their very neighbours. I also believe that many came to this place to try to make Parliament a better place, but now I have to ask a question of these same good members, these pro-democracy Conservatives: how did it come to this point?
There is much more wrong with the bill than the vouching part. Hearing speech after speech from the government side, one would think the only problem the opposition saw with the bill was around the vouching. That is very far from the facts. There is much more wrong.
I have to ask how these governing, pro-democracy Conservatives reached the stage where they feel so empowered that they can justify to themselves that somehow it is their right, and it is right and proper for them, to deny tens of thousands of Canadians their participation in our democracy.
The arrogance of a few over there is quite astounding. One has been recently quoted as saying that holding hearings for Canadians is virtually as important as a circus. That same member must perceive that Canadians who want to come before the circus would be clowns.
According to the member for Hamilton Centre who sits on PROC, the procedure and House affairs committee, the Conservatives in the beginning were showing interest in perhaps having hearings across the country. All of a sudden, that changed. As the member for Hamilton Centre said earlier today, the iron wall came down. We now have to bring this question to this place, the highest level of our Parliament, and get an answer from Parliament, not from the Prime Minister's Office.
The opposition day motion is seeking the opportunity for Parliament to give direction that we believe would cause this committee to do its job properly by hearing witnesses who cannot necessarily come here, witnesses region by region. People will come before the committee from Elections Canada. We hope there will be agreement on the witnesses here among the political parties, but representatives of first nations, anti-poverty groups, groups representing persons with disabilities, and groups representing youth advocates, students, and others have raised their concerns and done so quite publicly.
Among the things that are wrong, tens of thousands of students, seniors, aboriginal people, low-income Canadians, and the homeless are the ones who are most at risk. That is where a significant problem lies in the bill. We have to come to this House and ask Parliament to allow the proper outreach on a bill, a bill that is affecting our very democracy.
Trade committees travel on a variety of trade issues, including the EU agreement. I am not criticizing that travel because it is important.
I will say, again, that when we consider making a change to a law that would affect an individual's opportunity to vote, we must be careful. It is important.
I was a school board trustee before coming to this place. A wonderful part of my job was talking to grade 4 and 5 students and answering their questions about democracy. As an MP, I return to many of those schools to talk to those kids.
It would be ridiculous to ban Elections Canada from teaching kids about our democracy, about encouraging people to vote. It is important that Elections Canada warns people about election fraud. The person on the street has an obligation to see where the problems might be and report them if they find them.
In my mind, the Prime Minister is trying to use U.S.-style voter suppression tactics and bring big money into Canada's elections. The Conservatives have been shutting down debate and are trying to ram through a bill designed to stop some people from voting. Would it happen to be those people who might vote for someone else?
This legislation would strip Elections Canada of its investigative powers.
One would think that in travelling this country we would come across people who could provide good solid input, people who might not be able to access this place. Almost immediately, I think of professors at universities.
This legislation proposes to remove the power of the CEO at Elections Canada to engage in public education. I come back to this because it is so basic and fundamental. The CEO would be required to seek Treasury Board approval to hire technical experts. Has a person not been put in place to manage this file? Would that individual not have the capacity to seek out technical experts? It is strange.
With respect to voter ID cards, I would suggest that this is government manipulation in order to keep the focus on vouching and ID cards. There are other things that are so clearly problematic.
The bill proposes to change the amount of money, up to $5,000, that people can contribute to their own campaigns. If people run for the leadership of a party, they could put $25,000 into their own campaigns. That would provide people with money an upper hand over people who are less affluent. The idea of a democracy is to allow anybody to come here.
There is not just something wrong with this legislation, but things are missing from this legislation.
I have said many times in this place that the true purpose of committees is to work together. When a government brings a piece of legislation forward, I see it as the responsibility of the opposition to try to make the legislation better. We have come to the stage in our committee where we are butting heads all too often and the opportunity to make the bill better is not there.
In closing, I want to go back to the most fundamental thing. The good people who are in this place and who do have the proper intentions should pause and think about what they are about to do. We are about to take part in a process that would limit a person's franchise in this country. This legislation would put an artificial limitation on a person's ability to vote in a federal election. It would limit people's ability to choose their government.
It is very clear to those of us on this side of the House that we need to start looking at the people who would be disenfranchised. There are many in society who are already disenfranchised in many ways. Many individuals are poor. First nations are disenfranchised. This legislation would be an added suppression, for lack of a better term.
We can do better than this. Members should truly consider hearing from Canadians. They should put their trust in the democracy that Canadians deserve.
