“We need to be sure that not only we’ll have the bill for the next election, but the implementation of the act, full implementation before the next election. That’s very key,” said Liberal MP Stéphane Dion (Saint Laurent-Cartierville, Que.), his party’s democratic reform critic. The highly-anticipated legislation is a response to an NDP opposition motion that unanimously passed in the House on March 12 last year. It called on the government to strengthen Elections Canada’s investigation capabilities by giving the chief electoral officer “the power to request all necessary documents from political parties to ensure compliance with the Elections Act” and force telecom companies that provide political parties with voter contact services during an election to register with Elections Canada in addition to registering and verifying the clients of these companies. It also called on the government to table the amendments within six months.
More than a year later, the government still hasn’t tabled a bill to respond to the robocalls scandal which broke in February 2012 upon the revelation that Elections Canada was investigating misleading automated calls made to voters in Guelph, Ont., on election day on May 2, 2011. On Aug. 20, 2012, Elections Canada said it had received a total of 1,394 “complaints” of misleading or harassing phone calls in 234 of Canada’s 308 ridings during the 2011 federal election, calls apparently aimed to suppress voter turnout.
After announcing in Question Period on April 16 that the government would be introducing a bill on April 18 and placing it on the notice paper, Democratic Reform Minister of State Tim Uppal (Edmonton-Sherwood Park, Alta.) announced on April 17 that the bill would not actually be ready.
“In our desire to rapidly-incorporate recent recommendations made by the chief electoral officer, we discovered a last-minute issue in the proposed Elections Reform Act. Therefore, we are postponing the introduction of legislation. We will take the time necessary to get the legislation right,” Mr. Uppal said in a statement.
This came the day after The Globe and Mail reported that the during the regular Wednesday Conservative caucus meeting, Conservative MPs asked for changes to the bill. This also prompted Liberal MP Mauril Bélanger (Ottawa-Vanier, Ont.) to raise a point of privilege on the matter.
“That would imply that you’ve seen sections. That’s not allowed. Once a bill has been listed for tabling in the House, whether it’s a private member’s bill, or a public bill, a government bill, it’s secret until it’s tabled in the House. It doesn’t mean people can’t discuss it in general terms,” Mr. Bélanger told The Hill Times.
Mr. Bélanger said when he was the deputy House leader, it was one of his jobs to ensure that ministers would consult the caucus on new legislation “in the general terms, general orientation, not in the specifics, and certainly not in its written form.”
Mr. Bélanger said that under Parliamentary tradition and privilege, the bill must be secret until tabled in the House.
NDP MP Craig Scott (Toronto Danforth, Ont.) also spoke to the point of privilege. “That means that they have had an earlier vantage point on the bill than we have had. Under the minister’s announced scheme, we would be debating this [this] Wednesday in the House. If he had not been convinced to pull it back, the members of the Conservative caucus would have seen it a week in advance of any attempt by our caucus to discuss the same bill,” he said. “It is not just the fact that this was looked at today and withdrawn; it is the fact that had nothing occurred and the bill had gone forward, the Conservative caucus would have had a week’s advantage.”
But Government House Leader Peter Van Loan (York-Simcoe, Ont.) told the House that no such thing happened in the caucus meeting earlier that day. He said Mr. Bélanger and Mr. Scott did not attend the Conservative caucus meeting and therefore are “relying on assertions from a news article written by somebody who also was not in attendance at the subject meeting.”
Mr. Van Loan said that there were no draft copies circulated or shown at the caucus meeting.
“There were no sections of the bill on display, and there were no excerpts provided. None of what he is alleging, in fact, happened,” he said. “I can assure him, with 100 per cent certainly, notwithstanding the normal practice of not discussing what happens in caucus, that this is something that did not happen in caucus. Therefore, I feel quite comfortable discussing it here on the floor of the House for all Canadians to hear.”
House Speaker Andrew Scheer (Regina-Qu’Appelle, Sask.) ruled on the point of privilege the next day, saying there was no breach.
Conservative MPs were tightlipped last week about what exactly they may have been against in the bill.
Kate Davis, Mr. Uppal’s spokesperson, said she couldn’t “speak to caucus meeting specifics,” only that “we found an issue with the proposed legislation and decided to postpone introduction to get the legislation right.”
Ms. Davis told The Hill Times, “While the Liberals may not think it is important to take the time necessary to get elections reform legislation right, we do.”
John Capobianco, vice-president of consulting firm Fleishman-Hillard and a former Conservative Party candidate, said last week that nothing out of the ordinary happened. “It was brought back into the minister’s office for some retooling, nothing more than that,” he said, adding that “it would be helpful” if it were introduced and passed before the next election. “I think the prime minister wants to see it before the next election. … There’s no question they want it done and sent out.”
Original Article
Source: hilltimes.com
Author: BEA VONGDOUANGCHANH
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