In the member’s view, with the amendments the Conservatives have now put forward, does he agree with me that while it is a less awful bill, it is still not a good bill?

Kevin Lamoureux: Mr. Speaker, absolutely. That was well put. It is important we recognize that there was an incredible amount of opposition to the legislation and the manner in which the government brought it forward and attempted to pass it through the system. The way in which the government has treated our elections law is incredible.

As has been pointed out, I would suggest that even with the changes that have made, the legislation still has fundamental flaws. The most significant one is that it has not brought forward the ability to allow Elections Canada or the Commissioner of Canada Elections to compel witnesses. That is a serious flaw. Without that change, how can we possibly support the legislation?

The reason the public wanted to see the election law changed in the first place was to deal with issues that came from the last federal election. Without the ability to compel witnesses, even if we pass the bill as it is today, the election law will be weaker than what it was prior to its introduction. Elections Canada and the commissioner have recognized that point.

Therefore, I would plead with the Prime Minister to have a free vote and then I ask all Conservative members to balance it and vote against the legislation.

Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, I rise in report stage to speak, initially, to my two amendments. I had hoped to have substantive amendments at report stage, but members will recall that the committee was allowed to violate its own rules by rejecting my right to speak to my amendments as they were all gavelled through, all being rejected.

I want to express thanks to the minister for being willing to listen to the extraordinary course of denunciation for Bill C-23 at first reading. Unfortunately, even with the number of government amendments that were accepted at committee, the bill falls far short of being what is required to go by the name of a “fair elections act”.

Briefly speaking to the amendments I put forward at committee, which were defeated, it is a shame that we missed the opportunity to open a discussion on getting rid of first past the post and moving to proportional representation. I think most Canadians would be shocked to find that the leaders’ debates are not controlled by anybody, and that the opportunity to create a fair system, as presented at committee by Democracy Watch, was not supported by any party other than the Green Party.

On the requirements for people to bring so many different kinds of ID, we still do not have the kind of system that is as reliable as the election system before the Conservatives’ first round of amendments back in 2006. I wish we had ensured non-partisan poll workers.

There were numerous amendments from the Liberals, the New Democrats and the Greens on many of these points, for fairer financing and to take steps to increase voter turnout. I also put forward an amendment in the committee to shift the day of advanced polling from a Sunday. I will try again with the amendments I have before you, Mr. Speaker.

All the amendments from any opposition party were defeated at committee, with one exception, which was one when the Conservative leader on the committee pointed out that the Conservatives had been prepared to do that themselves had they had the chance.

My two amendments would do one thing, which would be fantastic, and that would be to remove the name of the political party from the ballot next to the name of the candidate. This would do a lot to reduce the excessive control of political parties over the electoral process. We used to have elections with just the name of the candidate, right up until about 1970.

I want to devote the rest of my time this morning to why we had the demand for a fair elections act, and how this bill falls far short. The initial attempt, and this was mentioned by other members in this place, the initial cry for reform of our electoral process, was in response to efforts at electoral fraud.

The amendments I put forward at committee, among those of Liberals and the New Democrats as well, called for giving Elections Canada the investigative tools it needed, such as subpoena powers, the ability to look into efforts, or deliberate efforts or actually successful efforts, at voter fraud and electoral interference that changed the course of elections. These amendments were defeated.

People have been very quick to assume that the so-called robocalls affair is now settled and nothing untoward took place there. Because the bill remains inadequate to the task of investigating electoral fraud, we can continue to have events like the 2011 robocall scandal without the tools of Elections Canada to respond.

In the time I have remaining, I want to ensure that it is understood we have not once, not twice, but three times seen quite scandalous interference in our electoral process, that if we had heard of these stories from some third world country, with some kind of tinpot dictatorship that ran fake elections, we would just shake our heads and say, “I guess that is how it happens in other countries”.

The first example was the 2005-06 election, when we had the deliberate interference in the election by our state police, the RCMP. We never got to the bottom of why Commissioner Zaccardelli broke all RCMP protocol and issued a press release during that election. According to a finding of fact by the Commission for Public Complaints against the RCMP, Paul Kennedy, the interference of the RCMP both violated its normal procedures and changed the course of the 2006 election. We had no investigation because there were no subpoena powers to call Mr. Zaccardelli to explain himself.

Second, we had an event that took place in Saanich—Gulf Islands in the 2008 election. I was not personally involved, but it was very clear, and there were multiple complaints to Elections Canada and the RCMP, that a robocall effort targeting NDP voters changed the course of that election and allowed a Conservative to be re-elected when all evidence suggested that he would not have been.

The Liberal candidate was neck in neck with the Conservatives. There was no NDP candidate on the ballot as he had withdrawn. An election eve round of phone calls went out spoofed as though they were from the NDP. The spoofing term is one I have learned. It is the technical term for using the home fax number, as it turned out, of an NDP volunteer to make it appear the calls originated from the NDP, urging people to get out and vote for a candidate who was no longer capable of election because he had withdrawn from the race. That changed the course of the election. Elections Canada was asked to investigate, but basically threw its hands up and said that it could not find anything, that there was nothing to see, so we should move on.

If members detect in my presentation that I am critical of the failure of Elections Canada and the RCMP to get to the bottom of that, everyone can bet I am critical. They utterly failed to defend the integrity of the election process in Saanich—Gulf Islands in 2008, and they did it again in 2011 with the robocall scandal. Thank goodness, The Council of Canadians took the matter to court. Other than Federal Court judge Mr. Justice Mosley, we would not have somebody as a finder of fact going over all the evidence and giving us clear foundational information of what occurred. Right now, the Commissioner of Canada Elections, Mr. Yves Côté, in his report of last month, once again told us that there was nothing to see, so we should move on.

Let me review what Mr. Justice Mosley found, because it is important to put it on the record to understand why this bill is so inadequate and why it should have the powers of investigation to ensure that crimes like this are properly investigated. Mr. Justice Mosley found as fact that “…there was a deliberate attempt at voter suppression during the 2011 election”. That was at paragraph 177.

At paragraph 224, he wrote:

At paragraph 246, he stated, “I find that the threshold to establish that fraud occurred has been met…”.

At paragraph 253, he said:

As well, he stated at paragraph 256:

On the matter of a smoking gun and who is responsible, essentially in this case we have a smoking gun. We know that thousands of calls were made, including in my own riding and across the country. I wrote Elections Canada with my concerns about these widespread attempts at voter suppression immediately following the May 2011 election. Who was responsible? I have made no accusations as to who I believe is responsible, but Mr. Justice Mosley found as fact the following, at paragraph 245:

What kind of democracy is this? We have the evidence of a Federal Court judge, thousands of complaints from Canadians across the country, a Commissioner of Canada Elections who says that there is nothing to look at here and everyone should move on, and we have a bill before us that would do absolutely nothing to prevent the illegitimate use of robocalls in future elections.

I concede to the minister and support the part of the bill that sets up a robocalls registry within the CRTC, but it is not sufficient to deal with the illegitimate use of robocalls and to protect Canadians, Canadian democracy and the integrity of our electoral process. This bill falls far short. This is a dark day for democracy.

Kennedy Stewart: Mr. Speaker, would the member care to comment on the happenings in the committee that was reviewing the bill?

The member proposed that we have a study on proportional representation, but the Liberals voted against it in committee in a recorded vote. We, of course, supported the motion that we should include a study of proportional representation in the bill. Would she comment on the Liberal rejection of this notion?

Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, yes, I was disappointed. It was a very modest proposal that we open discussion toward proportional representation, which was not supported by the Liberals. I have to say that I was also very disappointed—although the hon. member for Toronto—Danforth did put forward an explanation that was somewhat persuasive as to why his party would not support my amendment—that no one supported my amendment to have some rules to ensure fairness in the leaders debate. I was not without my disappointments throughout the committee process.

I think we need to continue to work to get rid of the perverse first past the post voting system. I commend the NDP for its strong position on that, but I think we need to persuade more Liberal and Conservative members. Within both of those parties, I know there are many members who find the current system quite perverse and would like to see real reform.

Wayne Easter: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the remarks of the leader of the Green Party. I think she hit the nail on the head with her last comment, “This is a dark day for democracy”, in terms of the possible passage of Bill C-23.

The member outlined a number of examples in her remarks, and I would add to that with two areas that the Conservative government has undermined. Canada at one time was seen as a model to strive for in terms of how we held elections, Elections Canada, and so on. The same thing with Statistics Canada; we used to be seen as one of the best in the world, but under the current government, we are seen as one of the worst.

I have two questions for the member. One, given how seriously Bill C-23 undermines our ability to police elections and investigate foul play, does it make it possible for a government to either buy or steal an election? Two, should we be calling for United Nations observers in Canada for the next election?

Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, I am going to assume the last part of the question from hon. member for Malpeque was somewhat ironic and so I will address the first part, which is: should we be concerned?

I believe based on everything I have studied, and I have really dug into what happened in Saanich—Gulf Islands in 2008, that it was a pilot project in seeing whether the use of robocalls could change the course of an election. Elections Canada and the RCMP failed to get to the bottom of it. Some of the complainants told me that the RCMP told them that it could not figure out who was responsible because the phone number originated from the United States.

Had that been a child pornographer or a human trafficking ring, I would like to think that we would have investigated who originated those phone calls. The idea that because they originated from the U.S. we could not find out, or that it was really small potatoes whether it was Gary Lunn or Briony Penn who won that election, is not the case. It is very large indeed in Canadian democracy when a fraudulent robocall marketing attempt can change the course of an election.

I believe that the failure to investigate Saanich—Gulf Islands in 2008 led directly to a more widespread use of robocalls in voter suppression in 2011. I shudder to think what the failure to properly investigate what happened in 2011 will mean for future Canadian elections.

The post Fair Elections Act appeared first on Elizabeth May.

Mr. Speaker, you will recall this is a narrative that has come up a few times in terms of the rights of members of Parliament in positions like mine, members of Parliament of a smaller party that does not yet have 12 members and has not yet become recognized in that sense, and the rights of independent members of Parliament. We know the principles here: that in theory all members of Parliament are equal and that we are here as members of Parliament, as many of your rulings have attested, Mr. Speaker, with the right and responsibility to turn our attention to every single piece of legislation that goes through this place and to have a meaningful opportunity to present amendments to improve legislation.

My intention with this point of order is not to draw it out. I will be as succinct as I possibly can be. I would like to review the factual situation in which I find myself and then distinguish for you the current situation from the normal situation within committees.

The situation in which I find myself is that owing to the rules of parliamentary procedure, members of Parliament in my position—either members of smaller parties or independents—on the face of it have a right to present substantive amendments at report stage because we are not allowed to be full members, or members at all, of parliamentary committees.

Mr. Speaker, since you will recall it, I will not drag out with precedents and reminders of citations the occasion on which the hon. government House leader attempted in November 2012 to suggest that persons such as me—and in fact he referred to the member of Parliament for Saanich—Gulf Islands as the impetus for his efforts—should not be allowed to present substantive amendments at report stage but should put forward a test amendment, and if that one failed, none of the rest of the amendments would be heard at all.

Mr. Speaker, you ruled in December 2012 that this would not be sufficient. You cited with approval the words of former Speaker John Fraser, who on October 10, 1989, said that “…we are a parliamentary democracy, not a so-called executive democracy, nor a so-called administrative democracy.”

You went on to say, Mr. Speaker, that since I did not have the right to present any amendments at committee, I must have the right to present them at report stage. Then your ruling went on to create something of a crack in the door that said that if a “satisfactory mechanism” can be found for a member in a position such as mine to have amendments considered at committee, then I would not have a double ability to come back at report stage.

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives in the House used that crack in the door from your December 2012 ruling to great effect. They created identical motions that were presented by Conservative members of Parliament in every committee right after the Speech from the Throne in the fall of 2013, and I have been living under that new set of rules.

Since my point of order at the moment deals specifically with the House committee on procedure and House affairs, I can refer to its motion, although in point of fact all the motions passed by every committee were identical. This was a motion put forward and approved by the committee on October 29, 2013. I will not read all of it. I will just summarize it.

If I and other members in my position want to have amendments considered for legislation, we must present them to the committee 48 hours ahead of when the committee begins clause-by-clause study, and the committee process will deem that the motions were moved, because not being a member of the committee, I of course cannot move them. As well, I cannot debate them and I cannot participate fully before the committee during testimony of witnesses.

I do not believe that this process is satisfactory at all. Mr. Speaker, the intent of your decision in the fall of 2012 was clear: that the process should be satisfactory to both the committee and to members in my situation.

However, I have lived with this set of rules. I am doing my best to live with this set of rules. I have endeavoured to present amendments 48 hours ahead of clause by clause and to participate, even within the very tight strictures of the rules.

However, here is the key one. At paragraph (c):

Forgive me for taking a moment to say the following. The chair of the procedure and House affairs committee dealing with Bill C-23 did an exemplary job. He was fair to a fault and did an extraordinary job in terms of his personal efforts to maintain an amicable atmosphere among all parties in a very controversial and highly charged bill. I do not for one moment blame the chair for the fact that he was prevented from fulfilling a condition, a condition precedent to anything that then occurred with my involvement in committee.

I presented my amendments. They were deemed to be put forward, but I was denied in the case of the surviving 11 amendments, which were past the point of 5:00 p.m. last Thursday. There was no debate allowed on my amendments, and I was prevented from making any representation, brief or otherwise, on my amendments.

I want to go back for a moment to the normal situation. I think that many in this place, particularly some who want to deny me my rights at this point, will go back to the default position that a committee is the master of its own affairs. A committee made the decision; the committee decided it had to finish its work by five o’clock by debate so that by midnight all the clause by clause could be through. It really does not matter that democracy in this place is diminished by such a rule. The idea is that the committee made the rule and the Speaker cannot interfere.

This condition, this situation, is remarkably different. It is completely distinguished from and different from the ruling that, for instance, you gave in relation to the member for Kings—Hants, who complained of a similar process. Your ruling of November 29, 2012, deals with that particular set of parameters, a committee process in which the Speaker is not engaged. The Speaker, as I know is the usual wisdom, has no business interfering with the business of committee, because the committees are the masters of their own affairs—except in this instance.

It is only owing to your ruling that my rights at report stage can be infringed, my rights at report stage can be reduced, my rights at report stage can be essentially eliminated if a process, pursuant to your ruling, is found to be satisfactory. Only due to your ruling was this new process invented. The new process states unequivocally that the chair shall allow a member with diminished rights, no ability to participate fully, no ability to vote, no ability to even move my own amendments, no ability to ask the witnesses questions. It is a very circumscribed, limited, and I think in some ways fraudulent opportunity.

However, there is a minimum thing that this motion passed in every committee insists upon for every amendment that I have put forward for clause-by-clause consideration as a member of Parliament, with rights equal to everyone in this place. The same applies for the other independents, whether Edmonton—St. Albert, Peterborough, the members who represent the Bloc Québécois, other members within the Green Party, or the member for Ahuntsic: we have the right to work on every bill in this place, whether we are members of committee or not.

This new construct has been created. We have put ourselves within it. Many of us, not just myself, have worked very hard to present amendments during clause by clause, knowing that we will have at a minimum 60 seconds per amendment to describe our amendments and argue for them.

In this instance, I submit to you that the Conservative majority is hoist by its own petard. It cannot shut down debate at five o’clock on a Thursday and gavel through everything, thus precluding independents and smaller parties from presenting their amendments later at report stage. It can have one or the other; it cannot have both.

It forced us into this process of running from committee to committee for clause-by-clause study. At a minimum we must be allowed to present our amendments in the committee. If that right is removed unilaterally, then I submit to you that there is no question but that we revert to the general rules of parliamentary procedure, those found in O’Brien and Bosc, which are very clear that members of Parliament in my position and others in smaller parties and independents have a right to present substantive amendments at report stage. That is what I intend to do tomorrow.

I urge and I hope that you will rule that because the committee failed to live up to its own motion, it is no longer a situation of the committee making its own rules.

The committee has constructed this fake opportunity and herded members of Parliament from smaller parties and independents. We are exhorted—not just encouraged and invited, but in a sense coerced—into a process not of our choosing.

Mr. Speaker, since it was owing to your ruling that this fake process was invented, at a minimum they have to live up to it. If they fail to, then it reverts to our normal rule that we have the right to present amendments at report stage in clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-23.

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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Barry Devolin): The member for Saanich—Gulf Islands is correct. However, the members still have the right to move that the member be now heard, even if it is a split time slot.

I appreciate the input from all hon. members on this matter. When I rose to call for resuming debate I saw the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent stand. I did not see this member stand. That is not to say he was not standing. The member did rise; however, she had not spoken when the parliamentary secretary rose with his point of order. His point of order is allowed and the motion will be put before the House.

The post Instruction to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs Regarding Bill C-23 appeared first on Elizabeth May.

Moving on, the member cited the Supreme Court decision that dealt with the current member for Etobicoke Centre while missing one of its central features, and that is the majority decision of the judiciary. I want to draw the member’s attention to this sentence: “The goal of accessibility”, that is the goal of being able to fulfill the section 3 right to vote under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, “can only be achieved if we are prepared to accept some degree of uncertainty that all who voted were entitled to do so”.

In other words, the ability to have vouching to make sure that people have the right to vote and can exercise that at the polls is so important that it is why the court found, in that instance, that the results of that election would not be overturned. We must have the right to vote and ensure that Canadians are not ensnared in a series of complicated ID proferrings that require multiples of different forms of ID.

I ask my hon. colleague if he does not think the Supreme Court was right on that point

Scott Reid: Mr. Speaker, I think the court actually was absolutely right on that point. Remember that this decision revolved around the eligibility to vote of senior citizens at a limited access, 24-hour care facility serviced by a mobile poll.

The argument being presented by the Liberal Party in this case, and supported by the dissenting judges in this ruling, was that the right to vote under the charter is a pro forma right. People must be qualified voters, and there can be very severe restrictions on what that means, including purely technical restrictions.

There is no question that the people who voted in that case could not be vouched for. There was no one living, including their spouses, if they had living spouses, at the same poll who could vouch for them. They were going to be deprived of their vote on that basis and an election overturned. The Supreme Court was entirely right to say that just because they did not have someone vouch for them was no cause to disallow their vote.

This is, in fact, the exact opposite of the point the member is making. This is about people who could not be vouched for. At no point in these discussions have I heard anyone talk about the people who did not benefit, who could not benefit, from the vouching system who were nevertheless being deprived of their right to vote by this kind of technical argument. Therefore I am very supportive indeed of that part of the Supreme Court’s ruling.

The post Opposition Motion — Instruction to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs Regarding Bill C-23 appeared first on Elizabeth May.

I wonder if the member has any comment on that.

Wayne Marston: Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for the question and the observation. The fact is, proportional representation would have made this place look entirely different from what it does today. That, in my opinion, and the opinion of my party, is healthy for democracy. Some people are getting elected with a very small plurality, but they get to govern as if they have the majority of the Canadian public when they only have roughly a third of it.

The post Opposition Motion — Instruction to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs Regarding Bill C-23 appeared first on Elizabeth May.

My friend asked if it is a privilege or a right to vote. He just needs to look at section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which says that voting is a right.

We do not have a fraud scandal in this country. We do not have any evidence that Canadians are voting more than once. We have evidence that people are trying to confuse voters by sending them to the wrong polling stations. We have a lot of evidence that Canadians are losing trust in the system and are not getting out to vote. We do not have any evidence of the idea that Canadians are voting more than once. Our problem is that they are voting less than once.

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