SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 334 - Jun/18/24

Jun/18/24 12:15:08 p.m.
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Order. The hon. member for Abbotsford has the floor.

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Jun/18/24 12:15:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I noticed that I touched a nerve. These folks over here do not care for Alberta. They do not care for western Canada. My speech focused in on the totality of this legislation. The reason my colleagues focused on the cynical ploy that is the election date is because Canadians, by and large, are not aware of this. They are not aware that the Prime Minister is monkeying around with the election date simply to protect the pensions of his own well-paid MPs. Shame on them.

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Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe (Lac-Saint-Jean, BQ)

Jun/18/24 12:16:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am anxious for Quebec to become a country so that we do not have to listen to the bickering of these three federalist parties. It will happen one day, I guarantee it. I listened to my colleague's speech. Something we have agreed on since the beginning is that it is offensive to have wanted to change the date of the election, especially for a completely unreal reason, namely that that day is a holy day. There are many holy days because there are many religions and many days in a year. At some point, that cannot be used as an excuse to change the date. We all know that it is mainly to allow some members to get their pension. My question is simple. Does my colleague find it as offensive as I do that they drew religion into an election date?

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Hon. Ed Fast

Jun/18/24 12:17:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what I find really shocking is the Liberals are prepared to Mickey Mouse around and gerrymander our election laws to favour themselves. They are going so far as to actually try to protect and vest the pensions of MPs who would not qualify otherwise. There is a very easy way to fix this and that is for the Prime Minister to go to the polls. Call an election right now. Let us see if the Liberals can back up their words. Everyone knows that they will never call an election now because they know they are going to lose because of their disastrous record. As I said in my speech, I am prepared to put up the Conservatives' plan for the economy and for our country and show how we can unite Canada against the Liberals' disastrous plan any day.

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Ms. Lisa Marie Barron (Nanaimo—Ladysmith, NDP)

Jun/18/24 12:18:08 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-65

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the member for Abbotsford for a very long career in representing the constituents of Abbotsford. I want to share with the member for Abbotsford that I have some great news. We have been talking about this from the onset of Bill C-65. I will be putting forward an amendment to change the election date back to the original date, so that this is no longer an issue. We have made this very clear. The Liberal minister has made it clear that he would follow the will of the committee. The Conservatives are against it. The Bloc is against it. The NDP is against it. This is no longer a part of this legislation that we need to be worrying about. Will the member share this with his constituents in Abbotsford, so they can also share the good news?

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Hon. Ed Fast

Jun/18/24 12:18:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the NDP members, who are part of the disastrous coalition, are saying “trust us”. They will fix it at committee, but let it go ahead in this House. They are saying to let these pensions vest for MPs who are not going to get elected and should not have these pensions vested. The member is asking me whether, if this gets fixed at committee, I would support it. If this change did not come along, Conservatives would be very happy. Leave the fixed election date as it is. However, I am not prepared to, any longer, accept “trust us” as being the mantra coming from the Liberal-NDP coalition.

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Mr. John Nater (Perth—Wellington, CPC)

Jun/18/24 12:19:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would say that I believe today is the 50th anniversary of the member for Abbotsford's 19th birthday. I do wish him well on this special occasion. The member talked about foreign interference in Canadian elections. How concerned is the member about the government's response and the other coalition partner's response to foreign interference into Canadian elections? Does he share my concern that the government really has not lived up to its responsibilities in keeping Canadian elections safe from foreign interference?

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Hon. Ed Fast

Jun/18/24 12:20:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is not only the member and I who have concerns about foreign interference. We, as Conservatives, have a real concern about foreign interference Canadians across this country are shocked to learn that the Prime Minister has already known for many years that foreign hostile actors were interfering in our elections. He knew about it, did not advise MPs who were affected by it, and did not put into place anything that would push back on efforts by foreign hostile regimes that were trying to manipulate our election outcomes. As we know, there are a number of MPs in Canada who likely lost their re-election because of interference from the Communist regime in Beijing. Did it affect the ultimate outcome of the election? No, but it certainly affected the lives and futures of those individual MPs.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Jun/18/24 12:21:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, imagine actually hearing such hypocrisy. The member is saying that the Conservative Party cares. That is a bunch of bull. At the end of the day, let us think about this. The leader of the Conservative-Reform party— Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

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The Deputy Speaker

Jun/18/24 12:21:44 p.m.
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I only interrupt when I hear disorder in the House. There was a statement there that the hon. member used. Members cannot do indirectly what they cannot do directly. The hon. parliamentary secretary should know better.

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Interrupt

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Jun/18/24 12:21:56 p.m.
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Sometimes I get a little colourful, I guess, Mr. Speaker. I will delete the word “bull”. At the end of the day, the point is that the Conservative leader will not even get a briefing so he could find out which members of the Conservative Party might be interfered with on the international scene. He does not even want the briefing. He would rather be naive, unlike the NDP leader or the Green Party leader. Where does the member get off saying that the Conservatives are genuinely concerned about foreign interference, in any fashion whatsoever, when in fact their own leader will not get the security clearance to find out what is actually taking place?

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Hon. Ed Fast

Jun/18/24 12:22:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as they have done many times before, our Liberal friends across the aisle are trying to muzzle our leader. That is not going to happen. Our leader will speak out on the issues of the day, especially foreign interference. Foreign interference is corrosive to our democracy. These folks over there are laughing at us. Look at them, Mr. Speaker. They are mocking us for taking foreign interference seriously. When Conservatives form government, we will take foreign interference seriously, and we will take steps to fight back and ensure that we remain free and sovereign.

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Ms. Lisa Marie Barron (Nanaimo—Ladysmith, NDP)

Jun/18/24 12:23:30 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-65 Bill C-297

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to stand today to speak to Bill C-65. First and foremost, because I do not want to forget, I want to thank and give a really big shout-out to my former colleague, past MP Daniel Blaikie, who did a tremendous amount of work on this file and deserves an acknowledgement for all the work he has done to date. I am going to try to carry the baton for the work he has handed to me. They are big shoes to fill, literally, but I will continue doing this important work. The bill we are talking about today is an important one. We know it is vitally important for Canadians to have access to voting in a way that is barrier-free to increase the participation of Canadians across the country, so they feel their vote counts. This is a time right now when it is vital for Canadians to know that our democracy is strong and that the process for everybody to vote is accessible. We are in a climate crisis. We are feeling the impacts of that right now with the heat wave here in Ottawa. We are seeing smoke-filled skies in British Columbia from forest fires. There is flooding. There are endless examples of the ways in which we are being impacted by the climate crisis. We know that people across Canada are struggling to make ends meet, to put food on the table and to keep a roof over their head. Right now, Canadians deserve to know that our elections are fair and accessible, as well as that our democracy is strong. Therefore, it is vitally important that we are doing the work today to set Canadians up for success for elections to come. The bill would do a lot. One of the things, and I will get into some of them, is around the two additional days of advance voting. This is really important because we know Canadians are busy and we need to make sure they have access to be able to show up at the polls and cast their vote for the candidate they feel is the best fit. Expanding these days out allows Canadians more options for being able to do so. With the passing of the legislation, there would be a phased implementation for people to vote anywhere. I am sure that members have heard from their constituents, as I have in my riding of Nanaimo—Ladysmith, that there are barriers when people go to vote in federal elections. They show up at the poll, excited to cast their ballot, but are told that the polling station they need to go to is on the other side of town. Let us imagine a single mom who has worked all day, packing up her kids to get to the polling station and show her kids she is participating in our electoral system, but then being told that she has to go to the other end of town. This is a huge barrier. I hear this not only from constituents in my riding but also from Canadians across the country. They need to know that they can go to a polling station within their riding, similar to other levels of elections, and their vote will be counted. There are also improvements to the mail-in ballot process. We know that, in previous elections, there were barriers, particularly when people registered for mail-in ballots. If they received a ballot and forgot to mail it back, then showed up at the polling station, they would not be able to cast their vote. These are busy times and, of course, this happens. This is a huge problem and an issue that is being looked at in the legislation to ensure that people who register for a mail-in ballot can still vote at the polling station and have their vote count. There are a lot of good pieces. Another piece is around students voting. In 2015 and 2019, we had the vote on campus program, where we saw big turnouts of students showing up at the polls to cast their ballots. Unfortunately, that is no longer in place. The legislation would make the vote on campus program permanent in all general elections. It is vitally important for students to know that, while they are on campus, they can easily and accessibly cast their ballots. This would offer an additional option for community members in the surrounding area to have another poll where they could go and cast their ballots. This is really important at a time when we need young people to participate in our elections. It is ultimately their futures that we are making decisions about today, and this is an important part of the bill. Another piece in the bill is around long-term care polling stations. We know that many people across the country are aging in long-term care homes. They would not need to leave their residence and could instead cast their ballot right at home, at their care home. This is a huge step in making sure that the people who have contributed to our communities across the country for years and years can continue to have their votes counted. I would like to point out something that is not in the legislation but that I would love for us to dig into further at committee stage. This is ensuring that we see an increase of polling stations, as well as having mandatory polling stations, on reserves and in Métis settlements. Because of the impacts of colonization throughout history, there are many reasons we are not seeing the participation of indigenous people across the country at the level that it should be. This would be a step in the right direction. It would make sure that indigenous people are able to vote accessibly right at home among community members. I found it interesting to learn, just today actually, of article 5 of UNDRIP, which I want to reiterate as a very important piece to this discussion that I hope to have at committee. Article 5 of UNDRIP says, “Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinct political, legal, economic, social and cultural institutions, while retaining their right to participate fully, if they so choose, in the political, economic, social and cultural life of the State.” I read that out because it is in UNDRIP, which is vitally important work that we all need to be paying attention to and prioritizing, as well as because of the fact that this could help to ensure that indigenous people understand their rights when they show up at the polls to vote for the candidate they see as the best fit at the federal level. This is work that needs to happen, and it needs to be prioritized. Another piece of the legislation, which is something I spoke to earlier in a question, would be ensuring that people who may be living with disabilities, as one example, are able to cast their ballots. Currently, there are restrictions on who can assist in casting ballots. However, the legislation is working to address that and broaden the scope of who can support electors, specifically allowing the elector to choose who can assist them. For example, somebody could have a support worker cast the ballot on their behalf, which is very important work in the right direction toward making sure that everybody's votes can count. In addition to that, once the bill gets to committee, we need to look at ways in which people with disabilities can maintain their autonomy and be able to cast their ballot independently, without the support of other individuals. Yes, again, I am an eternal optimist and hope that we can come together to see the bill at committee. It is great to set up those systems of support. Where we can, let us set up a system where all Canadians can show up at the polls and know that they can confidently and successfully cast their own ballot. I think about the tremendous amount of people who are reaching out with visual impairments as just one example. People with visual impairments could cast their own ballot if the systems were set up for them to do that on their own, so it is important that we look at this. Another piece I want to cover is around the inclusion of Inuktut on federal ballots, which is vitally important. I had the honour of visiting my colleague, the member for Nunavut. In Nunavut we visited Pangnirtung and Iqaluit, and it is quite evident that there are a tremendous number of individuals living in Nunavut who speak Inuktut as their primary and first language, so making sure that the ballots have the language spoken by the residents in the area is vitally important to decrease barriers to participation and to ensure that people understand confidently whom it is they want to vote for. My colleague, the MP for Nunavut, has been doing an incredible amount of work on this. The member has put forward, for example, Bill C-297, which I wanted to highlight. The goal of this bill is that in an electoral district on indigenous land, the Chief Electoral Officer may require all the ballots for the electoral district to be prepared and printed in both official languages, as well as in the indigenous language or languages of the electors, using the appropriate writing systems for each language, including syllabics, if applicable. It is really important that we listen to indigenous people across the country and make sure that ballots are accessible for them to be able to vote as well. This is an example of important legislation that the government can be leaning on to move us in the right direction. I hope this is legislation that we will be reviewing very closely at committee stage. The MP for Nunavut did actually participate in the process of a report from the Standing Committee on Procedural and House of Affairs that is entitled “The Inclusion of Indigenous Languages on Federal Election Ballots: A Step Towards Reconciliation”. There were a couple of pieces in it that I wanted to highlight. The MP for Nunavut pointed out that “most elders in Nunavut cannot read English or French.” This expands on what I was just talking about. She spoke to the fact that in order “to make reconciliation meaningful, Indigenous languages needed to be protected and promoted.” She went on to point out that “unilingual Inuktitut speakers find the complaints process inaccessible”, so that makes it challenging for them to be able to voice the barriers that they are experiencing in being able to cast their ballots as a result of previous oppressive systems that they have experienced. Also, the MP for Nunavut told the committee that she heard of people who have been “turned away from voting in Nunavut because of language barriers.” This is clearly not good enough, and it is something we need to be looking at closely in committee to make sure that we are moving in the right direction. The proposed bill does have some pieces we need to be sure to look at in committee stage. One piece is around the third-party activities. I would like to reiterate that it is vitally important that unions are able to communicate with their members. We know that “at the core of a union's mandate and function is the ability to communicate freely and effectively with...members.” Workers across the country who are unionized are impacted dramatically by the decisions being made right here in the House. We know that these decisions are life-altering. It is important that people across the country are aware of these, and it is vitally important that union representatives are able to communicate these matters with their membership. With that, there is some work that needs to happen and that needs to be prioritized at committee stage to ensure that the bill is not taking away those rights of unions across the country. I would be remiss if I did not speak about the issue that seems to be coming up over and over again in the House. There was a date proposed to push forward the date of the election by one week in the legislation. Unfortunately, this is highly problematic. I cannot speak to any other members' intentions. Whether intended or unintended, the consequence of this proposal would be that members of Parliament would receive a pension that they would not have otherwise been eligible for. As I said at the beginning of my speech, there are so many people across the country struggling to make ends meet, and now is not the time for members of Parliament to think about their own financial gains or their own pensions. Now is the time for members of Parliament to create legislation that would truly help Canadians across the country. Therefore, I want to reiterate that first priority. Once we get this bill to committee, I would be moving an amendment to ensure that this date would be moved back to the original date so this would no longer be a concern of members of Parliament and of Canadians across the country. It is vitally important that we do what this legislation intends to do, which is to strengthen our democracy and to make sure that we reduce barriers so that people would be able to fully participate in our electoral system. There is important content within this legislation that we need to be moving forward with. Much to my surprise, but yet also not much to my surprise, in response to this portion of the legislation, the Conservatives came out with an amendment to cut and gut the entire legislation, which would see this legislation no longer move forward at all. With that, it would take all of the items that I have been talking about during my intervention today. It would take away the proposed increase in accessibility for people living with disabilities. It would take away having polls in long-term care homes or having polls on student campuses, and looking at increasing the advance polling days so that we are not so reliant on just one day. There are many important aspects in this bill. To see the Conservatives respond by saying that we just need to cut the whole thing is not surprising because, currently, we have a system that benefits the Conservatives. We know that the existing system, where we have barriers to participation that benefit the Conservatives' corporate friends, is exactly what the Conservatives want to see maintained. Therefore, instead of putting forward an amendment to cut and gut the legislation, my NDP colleagues and I are proposing a solution to the problem, which is to amend the existing legislation to move the election date back to the original date and to see that particular issue no longer in place in the bill so that we can move forward with strengthening our democracy and with making sure that Canadians can fully participate in the electoral processes. There is a lot of work that needs to be done to strengthen our democracy. This is an important step in the right direction, which I am fully in support of. The NDP has done a tremendous amount of work to make this legislation happen and to see all of this work put into place. There is more that needs to be done. I hope that my colleagues in this chamber will continue the important work of looking at electoral reform and looking at implementing a system of proportional representation. The Liberal Party campaigned on the 2015 election being the last first-past-the-post election. Now would be a really wonderful time to see the Liberals follow through with that promise so that Canadians could see their votes adequately and effectively represented right here in the House of Commons. With that, I will say that this is an important bill. There is some work that needs to be done, but it is vitally important that all members unite to see Canadians show up at polling stations, feeling confident in our democracy and in their votes.

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Ms. Louise Chabot (Thérèse-De Blainville, BQ)

Jun/18/24 12:42:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, they are talking about dropping the idea of postponing the official election date, which is the third Monday in October, for a totally absurd reason. That is truly bizarre. I can find no other word for it. I wonder how that ended up in the bill. Why is that in the bill? In this discussion, the NDP has said that it will introduce an amendment, and that we should believe them. Of course everyone appears to want to introduce an amendment to this aspect if the bill is referred back to committee. Why do we not adopt the bill now, and settle once and for all the matter of postponing the date of the election so that it can be referred back to committee? I wonder what formal guarantee we have that it will disappear and we will not have to live with it.

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Ms. Lisa Marie Barron

Jun/18/24 12:43:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of responses around that. First of all, I am so pleased to hear that the member is in support of this legislation so that we can get it to committee to ensure that we are moving in the right direction. I am seeing a “no”, but I would like to clarify. That is what I heard, so I apologize if that is not what the member was saying. To clarify, first, this legislation needs to make sure we look at increasing accessibility for Canadians to be able to cast their ballots. We do need to look at other things that happen in those timelines. I believe that the strength in this legislation is that we would be looking at not having all of our options on one day. Rather, we would be looking at Canadians having multiple ways in which they could participate, such as expanding the advance voting days and having the polling stations accessible and available. We need to not have just one day as the main date. That would help resolve many issues we are talking about today.

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Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands, Lib.)

Jun/18/24 12:45:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first of all, with respect to the whole issue around changing the election date, I appreciate it, and I support the member's initiative to change the date. Maybe at committee they would find that a week earlier is better because it would help to accomplish a bunch of things, and I think that would be great. I took note about the issue of proportional representation the member talked about. If we go back to the supply and confidence agreement between the Liberals and the NDP, some issues listed under “democracy” are these: a “commitment to...work with Elections Canada to...expand [voter participation]”, a change of the election rules to “[allow] people to vote at any polling place”, “[improvements to]...mail-in ballots” so that “voters...are not disenfranchised” and a commitment “to ensuring that Quebec's number of seats in the House of Commons remains [consistent].” There was no talk, in the supply and confidence agreement with the Liberals, about proportional representation. If it is an issue that is so important to the NDP, why did they not bring it up and put it into that agreement?

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Ms. Lisa Marie Barron

Jun/18/24 12:46:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first and foremost, I know, as a fact, that this issue was brought up by the NDP with the Liberals to try to get it into the supply and confidence agreement. We could not get the Liberals to agree. This is an unfortunate series of events. However, I would like to reiterate that there was an opportunity, aside from this legislation we are talking about today, for the Liberals to show their support for proportional representation and for electoral reform when I brought forward Motion No. 86, recently. That motion came to a vote, in this exact chamber, for members of Parliament to vote for a national citizens assembly on electoral reform so that Canadians could provide their voices on how to best move forward. An hon. member: I voted in favour. Ms. Lisa Marie Barron: Mr. Speaker, I heard that the member voted in favour, but many of the Liberals and the Conservatives, which I would like to call the “Conservative-Liberal coalition”, voted against the motion moving forward, so we did not see Motion No. 86 pass. Perhaps the Liberals, who are in the position of power, could put forward legislation to see electoral reform happen.

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Mr. Alexandre Boulerice (Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, NDP)

Jun/18/24 12:47:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Nanaimo—Ladysmith for her work and congratulate her on her speech. What we are seeing today with this bill is the NDP once again forcing the Liberals to make our voting system more accessible. As my colleague mentioned, that is the least of it for the New Democrats, who have far more ambitious goals. She spoke of her Motion No. 86, which, unfortunately, was rejected by both Liberal and Conservative members. My colleague also spoke about the Liberal Party's betrayal regarding electoral reform. The Liberals told us that the first-past-the-post system would never be used again. The New Democrats continue to promote a proportional representation system because it is fair, it fosters better democracy and it respects the will of the people and what Canadians want. Why is having proportional representation so important for the people my colleague represents and for our democracy?

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Ms. Lisa Marie Barron

Jun/18/24 12:48:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for all of his work. One thing that gave me optimism when putting forward Motion No. 86, despite it failing, was that members across party lines voted in favour of looking at how to improve our electoral system and strengthen our democracy. This gives me the optimism to believe that just because Motion No. 86 did not pass, it does not mean there are no opportunities for members of Parliament to make it happen. The Liberal government is in power right now, and it can make it happen today. It can follow through with its promise that the 2015 election would be the last first past the post election, but it is too late for that. How about this? The upcoming election will no longer be a first past the post election and we can move forward with a system of proportional representation. That can happen today. The Liberals can follow through with their promise, although with a very long delay. My hope is that will happen.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Jun/18/24 12:49:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on the fact that a lot of aspects in the legislation would provide strength to the Elections Act. It would make it stronger, healthier and better for Canadians and our democratic system as a whole. I cited things such as enhancing accountability for individuals donating to the campaign, issues like cryptocurrency and other ways to shed more light on it. I wonder if the member could provide her thoughts on some of the things that we do not necessarily talk much about during this debate. A lot of detail within the legislation would add a great deal of value and strength to our elections.

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