Bill C-65

Electoral Participation Act

An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act

This enactment amends the Canada Elections Act to, among other things,
(a) provide for two additional days of advance polling;
(b) authorize returning officers to constitute polling divisions that consist of a single institution, or part of an institution, where seniors or persons with a disability reside and provide for the procedures for voting at polling stations in those polling divisions;
(c) update the process for voting by special ballot;
(d) provide for the establishment of offices for voting by special ballot at post-secondary educational institutions;
(e) provide for new requirements relating to political parties’ policies for the protection of personal information;
(f) establish new prohibitions and modify existing prohibitions, including in relation to foreign influence in the electoral process, the provision of false or misleading information respecting elections and the acceptance or use of certain contributions; and
(g) expand the scope of certain provisions relating to the administration and enforcement of that Act, including by granting the Commissioner of Canada Elections certain powers in respect of any conspiracy or attempt to commit, or being an accessory after the fact or counselling in relation to, a contravention of that Act.
The enactment also provides that the Chief Electoral Officer must make a report on the measures that need to be taken to implement a three-day polling period, a report on the measures that need to be taken to enable electors to vote at any place in their polling station, a report on the feasibility of enabling electors to vote at any polling station in their electoral district and a report proposing a process for the determination of whether a political party has as one of its fundamental purposes the promotion of hatred against an identifiable group of persons.

Electoral Participation Act

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I would ask the member, in regard to the overall legislation that is being presented and the commitment from the minister responsible, who brought forward the legislation, to look at reasonable amendments that would give more strength and would make the bill better. I am wondering if the member could provide his thoughts in regard to why it is important to allow the bill to get to committee.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, the reason I think it is important to get the bill to committee, quite frankly, based on some questions we had here today, is to have that dialogue. Part of that dialogue would be exactly to answer questions, some of which the Conservative Party is asking today. I very much look forward to that dialogue, to get right to the crux of where the problems exist: the who, the why and the how.

As well, as I said earlier, we have, on this side of the House, a party that cares. We have, on that side of the House, a party that does not care. The Liberals are continuing to put forward regulations and legislation based on the best interests of the public, and we are doing that with a great deal of respect, versus the disrespect that the Reform Party of Canada continues to put forward, almost on a daily basis.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

There is still some debate going on, and I would ask members, if they want to continue to have their conversation, to take it out. They may not be in agreement with what is said in the House, but I would hope that they still respect each other.

The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby has the floor.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am going to start with a little rebuttal to my colleague who just spoke from the Liberal Party. He said that the Liberals care and the Conservatives do not. I agree with the latter part; I do not agree with the former because for everything that Canadians care about, the New Democrats accomplished in this Parliament, whether we are talking about dental care, pharmacare, anti-scab legislation or affordable housing, and I can go on and on. However, when it comes to electoral law, the reality is that we heard the Prime Minister, when he was campaigning in 2015, saying it was going to be the last election that is first past the post, and we know how much the Liberals cared about keeping that commitment.

That being said, we support the bill because, first off, we know that the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith will be bringing forward an amendment to ensure that the election date is held on the election date as committed to, on October 20. That is an amendment the NDP is bringing forward. We have heard that other opposition parties—

[Warren Steinley]

Oh, oh!

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

—support that amendment, even the member for Regina—Lewvan, who is shouting in the House right now—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The member should exit the chamber, if he prefers to yell out.

The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby has the floor.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is an unruly, motley crew over there on the Conservative benches. We will see how unruly they get as the evening rolls on.

The reality is that all Conservatives should be supporting the bill with the NDP amendment, and here is why: The Conservatives have not spoken one iota about this throughout this debate. They always talk about having more debating time. They never seem to actually read the bills that we are debating. Not a single one, not a single Conservative commented on these facts in any of their speeches. What the bill does is to add two additional days of advance polling, which includes a total of seven advance days and polling days, including election day. That is a good thing, to have more access for elections. In addition, it enshrines in legislation the vote on campus program for post-secondary students. We want to have young people voting. Not a single Conservative talked about that. Why would Conservatives oppose having post-secondary students and people on campus actually voting?

The bill also makes voting easier in long-term care facilities across the country. The elders of our nation, those who have given so much for this country, often have difficulty voting. Why would Conservatives oppose ensuring that long-term care residents actually have the right to vote? One would expect that this would be the first thing that would lead them to support the bill. I imagine that not a single Conservative has even read the bill, because if they had read it, one would expect them to mention that it increases protections against election interference and foreign financing during election campaigns. With all of those provisions, things that the NDP pushed for and that we have in Bill C-65, why would Conservatives oppose the legislation?

I believe that Conservatives are taking their lead from what we are seeing happening with the deplorable Republican Party south of the border. What Republicans have noticed is that they cannot win a free and fair election. We have seen the extent to which MAGA Republicans are actually willing to usurp democracy. It has shades of what we saw a century ago, in Europe, when the far right movement basically threw out elections and destroyed democracy in one country after another. MAGA Republicans, knowing that they cannot win a free election, have decided that they are going to exclude wide swaths of the population from actually having the right to vote. They are trying to limit voting, in the way that we saw in the 19th century, when large groups in the population could not vote.

This, as well, comes back to the deplorable record of the Harper government. What the Harper government did, when the member for Carleton had the lead in that file, was to try to restrict and limit voting, to try to make it more difficult for groups of Canadian citizens to actually vote. They succeeded in putting up so many roadblocks and obstacles that it made it harder for poor Canadians, for younger Canadians, for racialized Canadians and for indigenous peoples to vote. They put restrictions on that sacred right to vote in democracy.

When colleagues hear the Conservative opposition say that they are not going to pass the legislation, that they are going to fight it tooth and nail, it is because this is a tradition in the far right. We see this with the MAGA Republicans, who cannot win a free and fair election. The MAGA Republicans are trying to cheat to win victory, to usurp democracy, to try to ensure that they can win, regardless of the cost to our institutions and to our democracy. We have seen the foreign interference that is writ large.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

I am hoping that means the Oilers have just scored, but I am sure somebody will rise on a point of order and perhaps update the House. If anybody is aware, if anybody has any information, I would be more than pleased to be interrupted.

Does somebody know what is going on, even you, Madam Speaker?

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I think the hon. member just got his answer.

The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, that is the sweetest point of order I have ever heard from a Conservative in the House. I thank my colleague for raising that point.

Madam Speaker, getting back to more serious matters, our democracy is not to be trifled with. We all think back to the days in 2015 when the current Prime Minister promised to overhaul our electoral systems and make them even more democratic. With proportional representation, we would have a much different House, as members know. There would not be 24 or 25 NDP MPs, but nearly 70. There would be fewer Liberal MPs, Conservative MPs and Bloc MPs. There would be more Green Party MPs.

What it would do is change the composition of the House. That is why so many countries around the world have adopted proportional representation. The idea would be to have a fair electoral system where votes count and where there is, through mixed member proportional, the ability to cast one's ballot both for local candidates and also for a larger percentage that is divided up. It would reflect, in the House of Commons, more faithfully how Canadians actually vote.

The Prime Minister, at the time, in 2015, undertook that solemn commitment. He said that it was the last election that was first past the post. We saw the results: He reneged on that when it suited him. We know that if in the next election, whenever that comes, the New Democrats become the governing party in this country, we will bring in proportional representation. We will make sure that it truly is the last first-past-the-post election, because that would be in the interest of Canada. That is why we and our leaders have campaigned over the years to make sure that we have a fair electoral system.

However, it is not just about the system itself; it is also about giving people access to voting. This is why the bill is important. The NDP pushed hard to make sure there were provisions in place in the bill that would actually ensure that the next election has the greatest participation possible of Canadians of all ages, all backgrounds and all colours and creeds, to make sure that every Canadian has a right to vote.

That is why we pushed so hard for additional days of advance polling. Canadians are working hard. As Conservatives have said, the New Democrats are the worker bees in Parliament. We work hard on behalf of our constituents and we know that they are sometimes working 12-hour and 16-hour shifts. On an election day, even though they do have the right to go to vote, it sometimes is impossible for them to do so. Therefore having additional days of advance polling would ensure that we do have in place the ability for every Canadian to vote.

In post-secondary institutions and apprenticeship and trade schools there are sometimes real challenges for the youth of this country to get out to vote. That is why we pushed hard to ensure that the vote on campus program for post-secondary students would be put into place. That, again, would be vitally important for the next election, to ensure that every Canadian has that right.

Making voting easier in long-term care facilities is something I feel particularly strongly about, because the last election, in 2021, was the last election that my father and mother voted in. They were in a long-term care facility. I took them to vote in that election. They both passed away shortly thereafter. A few weeks after the election, my father passed away. It was a year later that my mother passed away. I was able to take them to the polls to vote, but there were other residents of that long-term care facility who could not vote that day.

We need to make sure that long-term care residents who have contributed their lives to this country, to building this country and to ensuring that this country is the free and fair democracy that is the envy of the world, can vote. For long-term care facilities to not have special voting provisions to ensure that every resident could vote does a disservice to those incredible sacrifices that long-term care residents have made over the course of decades to our country, so we pushed hard for that to make sure it was in place.

That is why we are proud to see that in the legislation. We also need to ensure that we do not have the election interference and foreign interference that has been reflected in the NSICOP report. They are profoundly worrisome allegations of foreign interference, particularly around the Conservative leadership conventions and particularly in 2021. We need to find out about the extent of that foreign interference.

We have seen other democracies suffering under foreign interference, whether it was the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom or the election of Donald Trump in 2016. These are cases of documented foreign interference that had profound impacts on those democracies.

We need to make sure that this does not happen in Canada. That is why we pressed for these provisions in Bill C-65, to ensure that we increase protections against election interference and that we stop the ability of foreign financing of third-party campaigns or of the parties or candidates themselves. We all need to take that threat to our democracy seriously because this foreign interference does not come from countries that have a democratic tradition. This comes from foreign dictators who have control over their countries and who want to extend that control to Canada.

We need to ensure that we have full access for all Canadians in the next election campaign, that we open those ballots for advance polling early, and that we ensure that we have a free and fair election. That is why the NDP is supporting this bill.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

It being 8:38 p.m., pursuant to order made Monday, June 17, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the second reading stage of the bill now before the House.

The question is on the amendment.

Shall I dispense?

[Some hon. members]

No.