44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 18, 2024 10:00AM
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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- 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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- 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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- 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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- 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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- 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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- 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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- 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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Mr. Speaker, if anything has come to light in the last few months, it is the importance of all legislation looking at the potential of foreign interference, the prevention of and identification of foreign interference. This needs to be implemented in all legislation. Yes, there are some components within this bill that look at addressing that, as the member mentioned, such payments or donations that are not allowed to be made through money orders or cryptocurrencies, as well as looking at who can donate and ensuring they are permanent residents and Canadian residents. These components are part of a bigger puzzle of work that we need to be doing together to ensure that foreign interference is identified, prevented, avoided altogether and that there be accountability when it does happen.
I was happy that all members of Parliament voted together on the recent foreign interference bill, Bill C-70. My hope is that we will see that work, and this work, strengthened, so this is no longer as problematic as has come to light in the last few months.
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Mr. Speaker, let us acknowledge the fact that any legislation amending the Canada Elections Act is significant. This act is the cornerstone upon which the legitimacy of parliamentary democracy, elected officials and, by extension, the government, lies.
My first comment is that this important bill was introduced 48 hours before the summer break, along with a gag order. That is great for debate. They want to facilitate voter turnout. That is the obsession behind this bill, and yet the Canada Elections Act is one of the most lax when it comes to the ability to vote. I will get back to that later.
This is an important bill, fundamental to the legitimacy of parliamentary democracy, yet it was introduced with a gag order. They do not want much discussion. Moreover, people will go on vacation and they are supposed to know what is in the bill. The Liberals think that, during vacation, the bill will get media coverage; they will talk about it and list all of its benefits. Working this way is an affront to the intelligence of members of Parliament and voters.
That is not all. The bill also proposes postponing an election set for a specific date. The October 20, 2025, election would be postponed to October 27, 2025, supposedly to accommodate the Hindu festival of lights, which is not a provincial or federal holiday.
It may have been a noble intention, but this noble intention is hiding the elephant in the room, which is allowing 22 Liberal members and three ministers to get their pension. Let me point out that it is the Liberals who introduced the bill. They were one day short of eligibility for a pension. That is their true motivation.
In my opinion, the rule of law should not be subject to religion. Anyone who has a modicum of respect for religion does not use a belief system to justify a pension. That is what this outgoing government is doing while claiming that it is a very important bill.
Now we are being told that this part could always be removed from the bill. However, even if I had wanted to make an amendment, the Conservative Party's amendment does not allow me to introduce a sub-amendment.
That is why the Bloc Québécois will be voting against this bill. We cannot endorse such a travesty. We cannot endorse an affront to voters' intelligence. If there were only one day to vote, in addition to the two days of early voting, we might consider it. Now, if we add the two days proposed under Bill C‑65, there are six days of early voting. That is unheard of anywhere else in the country.
Why have six days of advance polling? It is because voters have developed a habit of going to the polls before election day. Add in election day and voters have seven days, yet that is still not enough. Not only are there six days of advance polling, but voters can go and vote every day at the returning officer's office.
Now we are being told that there is a festival of lights, which will affect people's ability to go and vote on the big day. We pointed out that they can also vote by mail, but the government said no, we really must accommodate them. It truly feels the need to sacrifice the rule of law to religion, because it is a religious holiday. What a load of rubbish. That is why I am saying that this is an insult to voters' intelligence.
When there are six days for advance polling, in addition to election day, when people can vote every day at the returning officer's office, when people can vote by mail, when there is a mobile polling station for people with reduced mobility and when people can vote in a long-term care home, I do not want to hear about how access to voting is being restricted. What more do they want? The next Elections Act will add two more advance polling days. Election day is no longer the only day when people go out to vote.
We are being told that the election really needs to be put off by one week. This one-week postponement proves how little regard this government has for municipal democracy. In Quebec, there will be elections happening six days later in over 1,100 municipalities. In 2021, turnout fell by 6% because there was a federal election at the same time, although the federal election finished much earlier than the municipal election, which is also on a fixed date. It is not like anyone can claim to be unaware that there will be elections in Quebec in more than 1,100 municipalities. It is 1,108 or 1,109, if memory serves. It is not like no one knows about it. It is on a fixed date, so it always happens at the same time. This government has so little regard. There are municipalities where the turnout in 2021 was as low as 18%, despite a desire and indeed a need to treat municipal governance not as an administrative extension of the Quebec government, but as a full-fledged government in its own right, a local government.
From a logistics standpoint, how will the Chief Electoral Officer go about finding polling places? I would love to hear someone explain that. That will really be something. In 2021, it was already difficult enough. It was a total mess. Now the Chief Electoral Officer will have to compete with municipal returning officers. Will the Chief Electoral Officer be able to use municipal facilities as polling places? The answer is no, not a chance. In Quebec, it is already hard to secure schools to use for advance polls. That is the reality. Those geniuses across the way say it is because they want to accommodate the festival of lights, but it was certainly not a brilliant decision on their part. That is the least we can say.
There are some good things in this bill, to be sure. The problem is this obsession with voting accessibility.
This government is so obsessed with voting accessibility that it is forgetting the need to strike the right balance between preserving the integrity of the process and preserving voting accessibility.
This bill could have been worded in such a way as to simply provide for polling stations in post-secondary institutions, two extra days of advance voting, an easier process for setting up polling stations in care homes, and better tools to combat foreign interference and to ensure the integrity of the electoral process. Had the bill been worded that way, the Bloc Québécois would have considered it worthwhile, but what about municipal elections? Are municipal elections not important?
Did my colleagues know that voter turnout was 44.7% in 2017? In 2021, it was 38.6%. Remember what happened in Quebec in 2008. We need to learn from the past, because these things really happened. In 2008, there was a federal election, and the Jean Charest government called an election in Quebec for six days after the federal election day. Voter turnout in Quebec had always been around 80%, 81%, 78% or 79%, but this time it dropped to 57%. Obviously, people thought he would be punished because he had just been elected. No one had decided to oust the minority government. He wanted to get both hands on the wheel. He focused on the economy, but Quebeckers' savings in the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec were in free fall, and there was no more money under the mattress. The Caisse lost $40 billion. Because he did not want to face this economic disaster during an election, he called an election.
We have fixed-date elections. Unless we bring down the government next spring if it presents a budget no one wants, the election date is set. Bill C-65 states that the Chief Electoral Officer can make accommodations if the fixed election date is in conflict with municipal elections. That is in the bill. However, they decided to choose the festival of lights, a religious holiday, over municipal democracy. Earlier, I heard someone say that Alberta would be holding municipal elections around the same time, and so will Quebec.
In my opinion, someone who has their priorities straight, based on principle, does not subordinate the rule of law to religion, especially when the religious holiday in question is not even recognized as a statutory holiday. If we had to consider all of the different communities' holidays, we might have a hard time. This is creating a precedent. If we decide to accommodate everyone, we will have a bit of a problem. I do not think these communities are even asking us to do that. These people are not even asking for it, and for good reason. They will have plenty of ways to avoid losing their right to vote. For example, they could vote by mail. In fact, the bill would improve the conditions surrounding this special voting method.
It makes no sense. We understand what we need to understand: The government is weaponizing a religious belief, a religious holiday, for purely pecuniary and political purposes. Then it wonders why people are cynical about their representatives and why people do not bother to vote. Does anyone here think there will be enough lampposts during the next election to support the posters for all these municipal and federal political parties? The parties in the House of Commons are not the only ones that will be represented in the federal election. It will be chaos.
The Liberals could at least have made some space and factored that into the bill. This would have given the Chief Electoral Officer the freedom he needs in the lead-up to the election to make sure the process goes smoothly, with no complications, because there are going to be insurmountable logistical problems on the ground.
They should just go talk logistics with the returning officers. As candidates, we had to meet with the returning officers during the last election. They were tearing their hair out. I am anxious to see whether my returning officer has any left. I think it is the same person as in 2021.
For all these reasons, the Bloc Québécois will definitely not be supporting this bill without any other guarantees, even in principle, because this was not an acceptable principle to present to the House.
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- Jun/18/24 1:09:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there is a double standard at play here that should be pointed out. The Bloc party articulated quite well, much like the member just did, why postponing the date of the election would have a negative impact on the province of Quebec because of Quebec's municipal elections.
At the time when the Bloc first raised the issue, it was not even aware there was a municipal election taking place in the province of Alberta on the exact date of the next scheduled federal election. When I pointed that out to the member in the Bloc Party, the response what that it was not the Bloc's problem and that it represents Quebec.
There are many members of Parliament who are national in their thinking. Many of them sit in the Alberta caucus in the Conservative ranks, and they seem to have completely forgotten that particular point. The minister made it very clear that he will support what the committee has to propose.
The NDP is proposing we change the date. We are open to ideas. Should we be respectful of the municipal election, with Calgary and Edmonton having the same election date as the federal election? Those who live in Calgary and Edmonton would be going to vote for a mayor and a prime minister, their members of Parliament. Should we at least be open to the idea at the committee stage?
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- Jun/18/24 1:11:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it happens all too often that we show up in committee after having voted for a bill in principle, but we do not get a chance to introduce amendments because of the Liberal majority.
The Canada Elections Act is too important to take that risk. There is no way we can trust people who had the gall to present what they did. It is crooked, and we do not trust people like that.
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- Jun/18/24 1:11:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague's speech. He clearly explained the problems Quebec would have if a federal election were held a few days before or after municipal elections are held in every municipality in Quebec. It is very difficult.
We went through this in 2021. We saw our municipal colleagues hold elections at the same time as ours. We would run into each other going door to door. That being said, I want to reach out to the NDP. If the NDP is prepared to bring down the government, we could have an election in the coming weeks. Would my colleague be amenable to that?
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Mr. Speaker, this is not enough to bring down a government.
I would tell my colleague that I hope to get Bill C-282 passed for our farmers before triggering an election. This bill is now in the Senate and is being held up by Conservative and Liberal senators, despite the fact that it was passed almost unanimously in the House. I hope my colleague feels the same way I do.
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- Jun/18/24 1:13:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his remarks. I know how interested and passionate he is about democratic and electoral issues. We both sat on the Special Committee on Electoral Reform back when the Liberals were still claiming they wanted a different voting system, one that would be fairer, more democratic and more egalitarian. They have since changed their tune.
We have all reached the same conclusion regarding this bill. By changing the date of the elections, this bill will allow a number of House members to qualify for a pension. The thinking is that perhaps the Liberals have bad intentions. The Conservatives are criticizing the Liberals today, but most of the members who would benefit from the date change are Conservatives. The hypocrisy on both sides of the House is indeed something to behold.
The bill is not perfect, but does my colleague agree that adding advance polling days, improving voting by mail and special ballots, and allowing students to vote on campus are nonetheless steps in the right direction?
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- Jun/18/24 1:14:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned in my speech, had the bill been drafted to include only those things, our position would probably have been different. I would add that, absent a guarantee that this crooked addition will be removed from the bill, there is no way we can support sending the bill to committee.
This bill also provides that the Chief Electoral Officer may consider conflicts with another election. This is an important measure. For my part, I do not question the Chief Electoral Officer's impartiality or logistical ability to organize elections worthy of a self-respecting parliamentary democracy.
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- Jun/18/24 1:14:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, all I am asking the member to do is to apply to the province of Alberta the same standards he applies to the province of Quebec with respect to the election law. If the member is concerned about the municipal election in the province of Quebec, should he not at least be concerned about the municipal election in Alberta? It is an issue of fair treatment. Someone can be a separatist in Quebec and still be sympathetic to the democracy in other regions of the country.
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- Jun/18/24 1:15:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have said many times in the House that I am indeed a separatist, but if I am a separatist, it is because I am fundamentally a democrat, since the democratic ideal is contained in the idea of a people's sovereignty. Just because I am willing to acknowledge that I do not know everything, that does not mean I am against the idea of ensuring that the election in Alberta holds up. I too share this concern. Democracy means democracy for everyone, and not just here but the world over, because we are also fighting for democracy beyond our borders.
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- Jun/18/24 1:16:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I know that the member is from Quebec; usually I would speak French, but I want to be clear to the parliamentary secretary, who keeps raising the point, and I would like to hear the member on it.
I am an Alberta MP. The Local Authorities Elections Act in my province, in section 11, says that any municipality can move up its election to the Saturday before a federal or a provincial election. It is a non-issue, and it is a talking point the Liberals keep abusing in order to try to curry favour or find a way to wedge the Bloc in its principal position on the bill.
What does the member think about the issue? The Liberals seem to want to use Alberta as a talking point, the same way they sometimes use the member's province as a talking point, to further their political ambitions.
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- Jun/18/24 1:17:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I do not think that was a question for me. My colleague's comment was about what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons said.
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