Fair Elections Act  Mr. Speaker, I do not think anyone in the House of Commons failed to see the irony of that member standing in his place to talk about infractions for robocalls. He will go down in history forever as the first person in Canada to be convicted of making an illegal robocall. In the

Fair Elections Act  Mr. Speaker, one of the provisions in the fair elections bill would protect against voter fraud. Due to enormous volumes of Elections Canada mistakes in the last election, we saw heightened irregularities in the use of vouching. According to the report commissioned by Elections

Democratic Reform  Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his excellent question and his work on this file. Yesterday, the Leader of the Opposition said he did not think a new offence to cover impersonations was even necessary and asked where it even came from. It turns out that it was recommended by

Democratic Reform  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his suggestion. Obviously, we will continue to study the bill in committee. The fair elections act will protect the integrity of our votes and elections.

Democratic Reform  Mr. Speaker, it is important for the member to understand what powers the commissioner already has. One, he can seek a warrant to obtain documents from a judge already. Two, if there are charges, a judge can issue a subpoena to compel testimony in a court. Three, the powers tha

Democratic Reform  Mr. Speaker, 73% of aboriginal young people did not receive the information that would allow them to vote ahead of the election. If those young people are working on election day, are at school or are not available to vote, not having information on voting opportunities was what

Democratic Reform  Mr. Speaker, the hon. member just proved my point. Elections Canada's efforts are not working. In fact, their own data show that young people are not voting because they do not have the information they need to do so. Half of young people do not even know that they can vote befo

Democratic Reform  Mr. Speaker, the hon. member misunderstands the roles of the various players at Elections Canada. First, the referee in elections is the Commissioner of Elections Canada. He is the one whose job it is to enforce the law, and he would gain new independence and new powers under th

Democratic Reform  Mr. Speaker, to the contrary, since Elections Canada began its promotional campaigns, voter turnout has plummeted from 75% to 61%. The reality is that Elections Canada data show that the leading reason young voters do not cast ballots is that they do not have all the necessary in

Democratic Reform  Mr. Speaker, the NDP has to make up its mind. First of all, New Democrats did not want any debate at all on the fair elections act. They sent their NDP critic out to declare his opposition to it seconds before he admitted he had not read it. Now they are saying they want more deb

Democratic Reform  Mr. Speaker, according to Elections Canada's own data, in 2011, 60% of non-voters cited everyday issues as reasons for not voting. Those included things like not having enough time, being too busy, or being away from home when the election was held. The way we help them to vote

Democratic Reform  Mr. Speaker, we have only begun debate. We have already begun with five hours of debate. Then we will send the matter to committee after it is voted on at second reading, at which time members can consider it and send it back for yet more debate in the House of Commons. I hope t

Democratic Reform  Mr. Speaker, what the amendments to section 18 actually do is require that before the CEO of Elections Canada experiments with new methods of voting, those methods are approved by Parliament. One of the methods that has been discussed is online electronic voting. Now, the NDP tr

Democratic Reform  Mr. Speaker, the provision that the leader of the New Democrats is referring to allows Parliament to consider ideas about new methods of voting before they are put before Canadians. If we want to have electronic voting, Parliament should be able to consider those ideas before the

Fair Elections Act  Mr. Speaker, of course, I would be willing to approach his amendment with an open mind. I have not seen the particular amendment to which he refers, but I invite him to bring it over. We will all have a look at it and consider it with an open mind.