2007-02-02

Private Members' Business
[Stage Direction]
(Bill S-1001. On the Order: Private Members' Bills:)
 December 7, 2006--Second reading and reference to a legislative committee of Bill S-1001, An Act respecting Scouts Canada--Mr. Ken Boshcoff. 

Mr. Ken Boshcoff (Thunder Bay—Rainy River, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There have been discussions among the parties and I believe that you will find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:
 That Bill S-1001, An Act respecting Scouts Canada, be deemed to have been read a second time, referred to a committee and reported to the House without amendment, concurred in at the report stage, read a third time and passed. 

The Speaker: Does the hon. member for Thunder Bay—Rainy River have the unanimous consent of the House to propose this motion?
[Intervention]
Some hon. members:  Agreed.
The Speaker:  The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?
[Intervention]
Some hon. members:  Agreed.
The Speaker: (Motion agreed to, bill read the second time, referred to a committee and reported without amendment, concurred in and, by unanimous consent, read the third time and passed)

Government Orders
Canada Elections Act[Stage Direction]
 The House resumed from January 31 consideration of Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Public Service Employment Act, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1. 
Hon. Mark Eyking (Sydney—Victoria, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-31, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Public Service Employment Act. 
On June 22 the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs tabled a report in the House entitled, “Improving the Integrity of the Electoral Process: Recommendations for Legislative Change”. The report was based in part on the recommendations that we had received from the Chief Electoral Officer. While there have been discussions about fundamental changes to our entire electoral system, these should not detract from the efforts that have been made to improve our existing system.
The government tabled a response to the committee's report on October 20 and agreed with a vast majority of the recommendations that were made by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. Bill C-31 was subsequently introduced on October 24 of last year. 
The proposed bill would amend the Canada Elections Act to improve the integrity of the electoral process by reducing the opportunity for electoral fraud or for error. It would require electors before voting to provide one piece of government issued photo identification that shows their names and addresses or two pieces of identification authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer that show their names and addresses, or they can also take an oath or they might be vouched for by an elector who does have photo identification.
The proposed bill would amend the Canada Elections Act to, among other things, make operational changes to improve the accuracy of the national register of electors. It will facilitate voting and enhance communications with the electorate. It amends the Public Service Employment Act to permit the Public Service Commission to make regulations that will now extend to the maximum term of employment of casual workers. We see this as an improvement.
While the government did not incorporate the committee's recommendations in Bill C-31, it stated that when it did not accept these recommendations, it had a fundamental disagreement in principle, or the items required further study, or we had received inadequate testimony and had been unable to reach a definitive decision during the committee proceedings.
A key concern of the Liberal committee members was to ensure that the bill allowed aboriginal status identification to be deemed acceptable proof for voting purposes. Government officials have clarified that the text of the bill requires government issued photo ID with an address or government issued photo ID without an address. This would include band status cards, but they would have to be accompanied by a letter from the band council or something like a phone bill that would have the person's number, name and address to corroborate the claim that he or she was indeed an eligible voter in that specific riding.
A second concern that the Liberal committee members have is ensuring that the enumeration process is strengthened on the reserve communities. The government has suggested, rather than send the bill to committee, that the committee simply pass a motion calling on the Chief Electoral Officer to strengthen enumeration in reserve communities.
My riding of Sydney—Victoria is in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. It has the highest population of aboriginals in Atlantic Canada. There are three communities: Wagmatcook, Membertou and Eskasoni. Eskasoni is the largest aboriginal community east of Montreal. These communities are overcoming some major challenges and it is very important that as they are taking charge of their destiny, they get involved in our electoral process.
These communities contain 4,000 status aboriginals. Voter turnout in these areas has been historically lower than in the rest of the communities in my riding. I would hope this measure could help increase the voter turnout.
According to the 2001 census, 4.5% of the riding is aboriginal and I think this measure will go a long way to bring voter turnout up to match the portion of the population. Indeed, Eskasoni is probably the fastest growing community in my riding. It deserves representation so that its infrastructure and social needs can be addressed.
As the bill has emerged from the work of the all-party committee, sending it back to the committee would somehow be redundant, given that the government has assured the opposition that the aboriginal ID concerns are addressed in the text of the current bill.
On this side of the House we support changes to the Canada Elections Act that protect against the likelihood of voter fraud and misrepresentation. We need to be assured that the aboriginal photo identification is acceptable. We also support strengthening the enumeration process, particularly on the reserve communities and in other areas where there is low voter turnout.
Before I became a member of Parliament I did work in underdeveloped countries. As a member of the trade committee and the foreign affairs committee we visited many countries with my colleagues. Many of these countries were just embarking on a democratic process.They use us as an example.
It is not only important for Canadian citizens to be encouraged to vote, but it is also important that we encourage other citizens of the world to fully participate in democracy. I encourage all my colleagues in both the House and the Senate to support this legislation.
Voter turnout continues to be low. I never thought I would see a 60% turnout from an area that used to have some of the highest participation rates in the country. Even in my riding where people are generally more engaged politically there continues to be a lower turnout. There is nothing more frustrating for voters when their name does not appear on the list.
The ID provision in this bill actually will make it easier for voters to engage in the political process. I am sure all my colleagues have seen that problem and will agree with that.
My riding is on the north shore of Cape Breton Island. It stretches from Bras d'Or Lake in the southwest to Cabot Strait in the northwest all the way to St. Paul Island in the northeast. Sydney is our largest centre, along with North Sydney, Sydney Mines and New Waterford. They are all communities in my riding. 
As I stated before, there are also three Mi'kmaq reserves: Membertou, Eskasoni and Wagmatcook. They want their voices heard. I believe this bill will bring greater confidence to the system.
A government issued ID photo is a small requirement to protect our precious right to vote. Indeed, even without an ID a voter still may be sworn in. That makes Canada by far one of the easiest jurisdictions in which one can exercise one's franchise.
There are other components to our system that make Canada a model for the world, including our system of professional returning officers. In my riding of Sydney—Victoria we have always been blessed with competent returning officers and our electoral staff. They undergo more training than ever before and this adds to the credibility of our system.
I believe the bill in a small way helps keep faith in the integrity of our system and that is why I am support the bill.
Ms. Jean Crowder (Nanaimo—Cowichan, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I was interested in a couple of points that the member made, particularly concerning first nation people being able to vote. I think we are all well aware of the fact that on many reserves the voter turnout is low and partly that has been a lack of responsiveness around appropriate polling stations for example.
I know in the advance poll in one of the reserves in my riding that there was a lack of understanding that people actually lived on an island and that they would have to travel from their island to a voting station that was actually on another island. There are a great many difficulties in having first nations turn out for voting.
One of the things that the member talked about was the fact that the status card would be one option, of presenting a status card and that would be acceptable identification. However, it needed a supplementary piece of identification or a letter from the band.
In my riding, using an example like telephone bills is a bit of a problem because many people actually do not have telephones. I wonder if the member could make some suggestions around what other kinds of things, particularly in these impoverished communities, might be acceptable. It is a real struggle to have voters turn out and it is an important democratic right that we would like to encourage.
[Interjection]
Mark Eyking: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's question, as many MPs have aboriginal communities in their ridings and it is very difficult for them. Many times, their communities are remote and polling stations are out of reach. We have to make it as easy as possible for those people to vote.
The other point the member brought up was about the telephone bill and the address. I am sure it is not just a telephone bill that would be accepted. I think we are looking at any piece of identification that shows the name and address on it as being acceptable. 
This is not going to be perfect when we are done, but I believe that some of these steps are big steps and are going to make it a lot easier not only for aboriginal communities but for many communities that have low voter turnout. These steps are going to make it easier for people to vote and to not be embarrassed when they go to the polling stations.
Mrs. Joy Smith (Kildonan—St. Paul, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the speech of the hon. member opposite had a lot of credible information in it. I have one question.
 This bill is long overdue in Parliament. Could the member expand a little on voter identification? I know that there have been incidents across Canada in which people have given identification but were not actually the person carrying the identification, so I understand that they voted under false pretences. What are the safeguards against this kind of thing?
[Interjection]
Mark Eyking: Mr. Speaker, as I said in my speech, people at the polling station are going to be able to identify most of the people coming in and out, but if someone really wants to do something wrong, it is hard. As for someone who comes in with someone else's identification and says he or she is that person and votes, it is really a disappointment. We hope that is minimized. We hope that is eliminated.
I think the gist of this bill is to encourage more people to get out and vote, to encourage them in areas where there is low turnout, where people feel intimidated when they go there and their names are not on the list. Also, of course, its purpose is to encourage the aboriginal communities. There is never going to be a foolproof system for someone going in with someone else's ID, but we are hoping that the people at the polling station will recognize that someone is using the wrong information.
Jean Crowder: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak about this piece of legislation before the House. It is an important consideration when we are talking about our democratic process. One of the fundamentals of our democratic process is how people actually get to vote.
The legislation before us is a bill to amend the Canada Elections Act. Part of the reasoning that has been put forward for the bill is the alleged cases of fraud throughout the country, cases of voters being able to vote who are either not part of that riding or who perhaps are misrepresenting themselves. 
Yet when the Chief Electoral Officer was asked about this very situation, what he indicated was that there were a very few isolated incidents of voter fraud. This notion that there is massive voter fraud throughout the country is bogus. If our Chief Electoral Officer says that there are isolated incidents, surely we should be able to accept his word for it.
The other thing that has been talked about around the bill is that it will be used as a mechanism to encourage voter turnout. I would argue that in fact what it will do is discourage voter turnout. 
Members have talked about the fact that people would show up and their names would be on the list. I fail to see how asking for more identification actually ensures that people's names are on the list. If we really want to talk about getting people's names on the list and getting an accurate list, then what we would do is universal enumeration. The NDP certainly has called for that.
There is another thing people are talking about. I might just back this up a little by again referencing the fact that we would like to see increased voter turnout. That is a major concern, I am sure, for each and every Canadian. We need to have voters engaged in that democratic process. What we are seeing is a continuing decline in voter turnout.
In the last federal election, it was in the low sixties. When we start doing the math on that, we can see that we can end up having somebody with 30% or 35% of the vote, which is 30% or 35% of 60%, actually governing the country, and then we have a very small minority who supported a particular political party making decisions that affect all of us.
 I would argue that what we need to do is look for mechanisms that encourage, rather than discourage, voter turnout. There are some aspects of the bill that will discourage voter turnout and disenfranchise the most vulnerable in the country, potentially including seniors, homeless people, students and first nations.
Part of the requirements in this bill are around voter identification. One of the very troubling elements of the bill is the fact that when a voter turns up at a poll and does not have the appropriate identification, the bill allows for somebody to vouch for that person. The unfortunate part of it is that once somebody has vouched for a person once, he or she cannot vouch for anyone else. 
For example, we will have situations in which workers in a homeless shelter or a transition house who could vouch for a number of people, who are eligible voters in that situation, will not be able to do so. In the past, people have been able to vouch for more than one person. That would seem to be a reasonable thing to do. This is one situation that is going to cause some difficulties for people who have been able to vote in the past.
There is another situation. The member opposite talked about the fact that there has been some agreement around the use of status cards as a mechanism to allow first nations people on reserve to vote and suggested that perhaps phone bills are one mechanism. This requirement for other kinds of identification like phone bills demonstrates a lack of understanding about what people's lives are like in many communities. I would argue that what we really need to do is work closely with first nations on reserve to find out what would work for them in their communities around encouraging voter turnout and participation in the voting process.
I have heard of some very disturbing situations in my own riding. People have turned out to vote and have been turned away for reasons that, it turned out later, were not legitimate. Their identification was not recognized even though there were people there to vouch for them. It is very problematic.
The other thing we find in this legislation is the date of birth. There is a clause in this legislation that would require voters to provide their date of birth to Elections Canada. That information would then be provided to political parties. If we were to ask voters in this country if they wanted political parties to have their date of birth, I would suggest that many Canadians would be vehemently opposed to that. 
I do not think Canadians want political parties to have their dates of birth. I do not think political parties would always be responsible about how that information would be used. We have certainly heard rumours around how, when political parties have access to that information, they use it for their own political ends by sending out birthday cards and greetings and all those kinds of things.
I am sure that voters would not appreciate political parties using their dates of birth on a voters list for those ends. I would encourage political parties, if they want to send birthday greetings, to find other means to do that. I would suggest that the voters list is not the appropriate mechanism.
One of the other elements of this bill that is troubling, and I did speak briefly about it, is about people who are homeless. This is a rising problem in this country. We know that in cities from coast to coast to coast we are seeing more people living on the street. I would argue that even enumeration in high homelessness areas will not give us an answer to that problem.
 In my own riding of Nanaimo--Cowichan, the city of Nanaimo, along with a number of groups, did a social status update for Nanaimo. In that social status update, they talked about the fact that residents cited the increasing costs of housing, both owned and rental. They also cited the increasing incidents of homelessness and raised concerns about the declining stock of market rental housing. They also talked about the fact that the housing vacancy rate had dropped from 3.4% in 2002 to 1.4% in 2004.
We are seeing increasing pressure on people, either from losing their homes or from being forced out of rental accommodation, in my riding anyway, because of rising rental rates. Thus, we have a couple of things. 
First, we have people ending up on the streets more frequently and therefore having no fixed address. If there is an election, we see them having more difficulty in terms of turning up at polls with appropriate identification that demonstrates where they live.
 On the other hand, we also have people who are moving more frequently and who may not necessarily have identification with their current address when they turn up to vote.
These are important issues that we need to consider when we are encouraging voter turnout.
A couple of other things came up in this particular study that are directly related to voters being able to identify who they are. Again, the study talks about multiple moves, saying that the lack of affordable housing leads to multiple moves, which creates instability for children and causes difficulty for service providers trying to stay connected.
 It is the service provider piece of it that is also important, because we say that people who know us can vouch for us when we are voting, yet when we have people disconnecting from the very service providers who could provide that voucher process, we are seeing that disconnect here as well.
The study also talks about how there is a need to develop appropriate housing and support systems to enable seniors to live independently for as long as possible, saying that if this occurred, it would relieve demand for more costly facility care arrangements. Seniors are also in this crunch. We know that seniors think it is a really important part of the democratic process to exercise their right to vote. We know that seniors vote in higher numbers. We want to make sure that seniors continue to have that right to vote.
A number of amendments have been put forward by the New Democrats. Certainly one of the things we have suggested is that the government look at a system currently in place in British Columbia. In the current system in British Columbia, there is an opportunity for people to swear to the fact that they said who they were. This system has worked well in British Columbia and has allowed people in places like Vancouver East, for example, to exercise their right to vote.
Unless the amendments that we have put forward are supported by members in the House, it will be difficult for the New Democrats to support the legislation as it stands.
Joy Smith: Mr. Speaker, after listening to the speech this morning, I certainly do have some questions. The purpose of the bill is to ensure that voting is done fairly and in such a way that identification can be secure so a fair and equitable voting process in a democratic society can take place.
I was quite interested to hear the member's presentation this morning. It seemed that the member discouraged putting these safeguards in the bill for a number of reasons. It was also interesting to hear her comments about seniors and that the bill would discourage seniors from voting. 
Quite the opposite will happen because, as we know right now, seniors do vote and are very careful to give their identification and to get out to vote. I have heard from seniors in my riding who are pleased the bill is before the House of Commons.
The member said that we were just overstating everything and that there was not massive fraud in Canada. I do not think we are talking about massive fraud. We are saying that fraudulent incidents do occur and we need to address that, which is exactly what the bill is trying to accomplish.
What are the reasons the member thinks that seniors would be discouraged from turning out to vote if the bill passes in the House? I would like to know the reason why the statement was made.
[Interjection]
Jean Crowder: Mr. Speaker, I did not say that seniors would be discouraged. I said that we wanted to ensure there were no difficulties presented for them. Seniors could be discouraged if, for example, they are faced with constant moving because of increased problems with access to accommodation that could make it more challenging for them to have the appropriate identification.
Anyone who recognizes that seniors are increasingly struggling with poverty and their housing situation will recognize that they may run into some difficulties if an election is called before all the appropriate mechanisms are in place.
I will talk a little about the fraud. When we asked the Chief Electoral Officer if he felt there had been huge instances of fraud, he basically said that there were a few isolated incidents but that no political party had brought to his attention any systemic things going on. He said that as far as he was concerned this was not a big issue. 
I would argue that if there are some isolated incidents, we need to find mechanisms to deal with those. However, we know that universal enumeration has been very effective in the past. Many people would support that. It would make sense to ensure the voter lists are accurate, are up to date and they reflect the true availability of voters in the riding.
Hon. Stephen Owen (Vancouver Quadra, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, one of the things that Canada has become best known for in terms of taking its international responsibility is providing assistance to countries that are newly democratizing or re-democratizing after civil war. In the last year alone we have assisted the Ukraine and the Palestinian Authority, even training people in Jordan to assist with elections in Iraq, and now in Bangladesh, although it has been delayed for some period of time and, regrettably, we have had election monitors there. The standards that we advise newly democratizing countries to meet are even more stringent than the bill is suggesting. We are looked to for our expertise in that.
I wonder if the member would comment on the reasonableness, perhaps, if she thinks it is, that we should be seen as experts on the international stage but we should be applying standards lower in Canada than we are advising and training people to apply in other countries.
[Interjection]
Jean Crowder: Mr. Speaker, New Democrats are very conscious of the fact that we want our electoral system to be as free from fraud as possible. To that end, we have suggested a number of amendments that would not only protect the legitimacy of our system but also ensure that people wanting to vote actually can do that. 
Some of the things around having someone vouch for more than one person would be a legitimate way to protect the integrity of the system as well as having people exercise their right to vote. 
We put forward a number of other amendments that would ensure we were meeting those high standards, both nationally and internationally.
Ken Boshcoff: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to express my support for Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Public Service Employment Act. The bill would make many positive changes to the Elections Act that would protect against voter fraud and misrepresentation.
One issue that the bill addresses is the current practice of using federal income tax returns to update the Elections Canada register. Certainly tax returns are an excellent tool to obtain current information on our citizens. However, I have had numerous experiences where an individual is listed on the electors list who is not a Canadian citizen.
As we know, only Canadian citizens over 18 years of age are qualified to vote. The bill adds proposed section 46.1 to the Canada Elections Act authorizing the Minister of National Revenue to amend tax return forms so that individuals may indicate whether they are Canadian citizens. I believe this is a very positive step and will reduce significant confusion among foreign citizens who reside in our communities. I will have an anecdote toward the end of my speech on this very issue.
The bill would also implement new requirements for proof of identity to be shown at the voter's booth. I am sure we have all heard stories of voter cards being stolen. Until now there has been no requirement to show any proof of identity, which meant that anyone who had a voter's card could cast a vote, regardless of whether he or she were actually the citizen whose name was on the card.
Clearly, under the former system there was a very big loophole and any person or group with dishonest intentions could steal voter cards and use them for their own purposes. This deficiency put the entire election process in a bad light and had the potential to cause significant damage to the rights of Canadian citizens. Often, the perception of wrongdoing is just as harmful as the actual immoral act. As such, just having such a deficit in the system can add to the distrust felt by voters.
 I am pleased that this new process will be implemented to ensure that all Canadian citizens who are eligible to vote cannot have that right stolen from them by the dishonesty of another. 
Under this process, a voter would be required to provide identification at the voter's booth. That identification consists of: one piece of ID issued by any level of government that contains a photo and the name and address of the voter; or, two pieces of identification with the name and address that have been authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer. The Chief Electoral Officer would be required to publish a list of what will be acceptable identification; or, alternatively, if the elector does not have suitable identification, he or she can take an oath as long as he or she can be vouched for by another person who is listed on the list of electors.
I am very pleased with this third alternative being added to the bill. There are many people, whether seniors or disabled individuals, who do not have the above identification items. Through this option to take an oath, these Canadian citizens would still be able to vote as granted by the Canadian Charter of Rights.
The bill also addresses the practice of serial vouching by limiting each elector to be able to vouch for only one person. In addition, it bans vouching by electors who have been vouched for by another. That is a good rule. I am confident that this new provision to require proof of identity will be an excellent deterrent to fraud.
As the member of Parliament for Thunder Bay—Rainy River, there are 11 first nations in my riding: Fort William, Lac Des Mille Lacs, Lac La Croix, Seine River First Nation, Nicickousemenecaning, Couchiching First Nation, Naicatchewenin, Manitou Mounds, Rainy River First Nations, Stanjikoming First Nation, Big Island and Big Grassy. 
The residents in first nations such as those often share one joint community postal box. As such, door to door enumeration in those areas is vital to ensuring that all eligible first nations people are included on the voters list.
One can imagine the difficulties when fathers, sons and uncles or mothers, aunts and daughters have the same name and surname. This can create terrific problems. It has in the past and I believe it has led to considerable discouragement of the voting process.
I am pleased with the committee motion calling on the Chief Electoral Officer to strengthen enumeration in reserve communities and areas of low enumeration. I believe this extra effort will go a long way to help the disenfranchisement of our first nations people in federal elections.
We have all heard of the horror stories in the big urban ridings of people being bused in by the dozens or the hundreds, voter cards missing from apartment buildings and those kinds of things. This amendment would certainly correct that. It is important to instill that last vestige of security that we need for our democratic process.
As elected representatives, we are all familiar with the process of volunteers calling people who have received voter cards and then being asked whether they can vote with their card. The volunteer must ask whether they are 18 and whether they are Canadian citizens. From a campaign standpoint, we can give them the best advice but they still have the card sent to them.
I believe that with this type of identification we should be able to eliminate those last vestiges of people taking advantage of the system.
In the last round of municipal elections in Ontario there was yet another decrease in voter participation. In my previous life I was the mayor of the city of Thunder Bay. Although I did not run in the last municipal election, many people actually congratulated me and advised me that they had voted for me. We know there is considerable confusion in the democratic process. It is flattering, but then I know for sure these people did not vote for me.
If we want to set an international example, when we go to other nations that ask us to consult and be the model on which they establish their democratic process, it comes down to presenting them with our great rules and our great process. However, I only hope that they have not watched question period when they ask for an example of how a democratic nation should behave. Indeed, our own decorum is probably where we should be starting to set an example, not only for ourselves but for the young people in the galleries. They know that if they behaved and used some of the language that they hear, they would rapidly be in detention or out of class. 
If we can restore that decorum part, it will let people know that if we think they are important, then they will realize that they are important and that their vote has much more value and importance. By knowing that they count, that actually means our country counts for more. In this way, we would actually increase the value or the significance of someone's vote. People would not feel that their vote has been wasted. People would feel that they were all pretty much the same. 
Standards of respect and recognition in decorum, in tandem with Bill C-31 on the technical side, would certainly restore voter confidence. We know as a nation, when we compare ourselves to nations such as Australia with compulsory voting or others with much higher voter participation, that we can do more.
I encourage all members to support Bill C-31 to increase voter participation.
Hon. Jay Hill (Secretary of State, CPC): Mr. Speaker, it has already been well stated by members of Parliament from all four political parties in the House how important is the integrity of our electoral system. I certainly would agree with that.
Even prior to the government bringing forward Bill C-31, I have been a very welcome participant in the debate that has ensued at the procedure and House affairs committee, so I welcome the remarks of my colleague from Thunder Bay—Rainy River, not Kenora—Rainy River, and agree with the thrust of the comments he was making.
I would like to draw attention to the comments of his colleague from Vancouver Quadra who on a number of occasions has made reference to the fact that if we as the nation Canada are going to be a beacon for democracy, and a model, as my colleague just referred to, to the developing nations in the world, then it is incumbent upon us as parliamentarians and indeed all Canadians to ensure that our electoral system is of the highest possible standard. That is the concern of all of us. It certainly was expressed by members of Parliament at the procedure and House affairs committee. 
I could not agree with my colleague from Vancouver Quadra more about that fundamental point, that it is up to us to ensure that we safeguard the integrity of our system. If there is any possibility of fraud, we must make adjustments to our system to ensure that we can stand up or as he said, when we suggest to other nations how they could model their systems on ours, that we have every confidence that we are holding ours up as the standard to aspire to. I would agree with the member on that.
The NDP has brought up this whole issue of vouching. The difficulty I have with that is if we have multiple vouching where one individual says, “Yes, I know Joe and Sam and Lou”, et cetera, there is an obvious opportunity for fraud, and that is what we are trying to prevent. 
I recently had the opportunity to be in South Africa, a nation that has been developing its electoral system. A specific voter ID card is required there. In addition, it is required that the thumb be actually inked on the day of the election. These are the extremes that some countries are going to, to ensure there is absolutely no fraud in their systems and yet we seem to be balking at even having fundamental rules about voter identification. 
As the member for Vancouver Quadra indicated, it is very difficult for us to maintain our defence of our system if we cannot ensure when we say this to other countries that ours is an example.
I wonder if my colleague from Thunder Bay—Rainy River would comment on this whole business of vouching specifically and of the importance of ensuring that when a person actually casts his or her ballot that at a minimum the person is a citizen and he or she does at least even temporarily reside in the riding where he or she is marking his or her X. 
[Interjection]
Ken Boshcoff: Mr. Speaker, I would have to say that in communities such as mine, the experience is that this type of issue does not come up as much as it would in intensely urban areas. It may be the nature of proximity to large populations and their density, meaning the number of people per square mile, that there would be that opportunity to be led into temptation, to take advantage of a situation. Perhaps in a high-rise apartment building there may be several hundred voter cards sitting there or subject to borrowing or temporary use, and those kinds of things could happen.
The rule of one person, one voucher and not being able to reverse that is a very solid step forward. Again, as the hon. member mentioned, if Canada is going to be used as an example, we would really want to show that we really have covered the bases, that we have a model that protects people. I view it strictly as protection. People should be really glad to go there and be proud to know that they are voting--
The Speaker: I am afraid the time allotted for questions and comments has expired so we will call for resuming debate. The hon. member for British Columbia Southern Interior.
Mr. Alex Atamanenko (British Columbia Southern Interior, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to talk about this bill. 
There are a couple of problems with the bill, although the intent is good. Overall there are people all of us are trying to target in the election who do not vote, people who have never voted, or for one reason or another find it difficult or complicated to vote. I personally feel that by introducing more constraints we may lose these people. Somehow we have to find a compromise between what is proposed and people who are cheating the system.
This bill will result in thousands of individuals who lack proper identification, maybe due to poverty, illness, disability or having no stable address, not being able to exercise their right to vote because of the identification requirements in the bill. People who are homeless or who are temporarily housed often do not have identification that reflects their address or their stay in a shelter. How would we get them out to exercise their democratic right? 
We put forward recommendations at committee that would have addressed these concerns. These include the use of statutory declarations as an alternate means of identification for an elector to prove his or her identity. We also proposed an amendment to allow for a representative of a recognized agency to be authorized to vouch for the agency's clientele as authorized by the local returning officer and that someone, not necessarily residing in the same poll, be allowed to vouch for more than one elector at a time.
These are amendments that can be looked at and tightened up, but the idea is that we have to somehow allow people who often do not vote, or who may not have a home at some point in time, to exercise their democratic right. These amendments unfortunately were defeated by members of each of the other parties.
We will want to propose amendments at report stage to address the concerns of the Public Service Alliance of Canada and the Professional Institute of the Public Service dealing with provisions in the bill for casual employment. As the Professional Institute of the Public Service pointed out, these two amendments are more or less buried in a bill devoted mainly to the Canada Elections Act. They may seem innocuous but they could potentially have a significant impact on employment patterns in the federal public service, particularly at a time when government has called for more flexibility in departmental hiring.
Having said that, I would like to take a few minutes to address the whole question of electoral reform, not only reforming the Canada Elections Act but electoral reform in general. As members of the House know, a former member of the House, Ed Broadbent, unveiled his ethics package. Part of one point in his ethics package called for serious electoral reform. 
Most of us probably would agree that we have an antiquated first past the post system which requires major democratic reform. To achieve a degree of fairness for all people in our society, we need a mixed system of past the post plus proportional representation which would be necessary to erase the imbalance in the House of Commons.
The member for Vancouver Island North has tabled a motion which will be debated very soon. It offers public input on serious electoral reform relating to how members of Parliament are chosen. The motion calls for a special committee to be created to make further recommendations on strengthening and modernizing our democratic and electoral systems.
There already have been recommendations that were agreed to by all parties, including the Conservative Party. This all-party approach of working together would ultimately result in an electoral system where every vote cast by Canadians was reflected in the House of Commons.
It is interesting to look at the imbalance under our current system and what we call a broken voting system. In 2006 in Alberta there was a Conservative sweep of 100% of the Alberta seats with only 65% of the vote; 665,940 Green voters elected no MPs; while 475,114 Liberal voters in Atlantic Canada alone elected 22 Liberal MPs. It took 89,296 votes to elect each NDP member of Parliament, but just 43,339 votes for each Conservative, 43,490 for each Liberal, and 30,455 for each Bloc MP. Some would say it is a good thing; some would say it is not a good thing.
Let us look at some other low points in Canadian elections. In the 1990s Canada ranked 109th among 163 nations in voter turnout, slightly behind Lebanon, in a dead heat with Benin and just ahead of Fiji. In 1984 the Progressive Conservatives won 50% of the votes but gained nearly 75% of the seats, close to an all-time record for the largest percentage of unearned seats in any federal election.
Obviously we need some kind of a system of reform to reflect how people vote in Canada. In 2004 more than 500,000 Green voters failed to elect a single MP anywhere, while fewer than 500,000 Liberal voters in Atlantic Canada alone elected 22 Liberal MPs. In 2000, 22 candidates became MPs despite winning less than 40% of the votes in their ridings. In 2004, the election produced a House with only 21% of women MPs, with Canada ranking 36th among nations in percentage of women MPs, well behind most western European counties.
In 1993 the newly formed Bloc Québécois came in fourth in the popular vote but formed the official opposition by gaining more seats than the second place Reform Party and the third place Tories. In 2000, 2.3 million Liberal voters in Ontario elected 100 Liberal MPs while the other 2.2 million Ontario voters elected only three MPs from other parties. In 1993 more than two million votes for Kim Campbell's Progressive Conservatives translated into two seats, or one seat for every one million voters. Meanwhile the voting system gave the Liberal Party one seat for every 32,000 votes.
Finally, in 1984, when competing for the Liberal leadership Jean Chrétien told reporters in Brandon, Manitoba that he would introduce proportional representation right after the next election if he became Prime Minister. In 1993 Jean Chrétien won the election and began his 10 year reign as Prime Minister. In three elections he never won more than 42% of the popular vote but still formed majority governments, thanks to the current voting system. And of course, he never got around to introducing proportional representation.
It is important at this point in our history, and I think we have the will to do it here in Parliament, to bring something forward that eventually and hopefully soon will reflect the voting patterns of all the voters in Canada.
I hope that we will be able to work together to develop a voting system that represents all Canadians proportionally. That way, we will bring a fairer system to Canada's Parliament. 
The Speaker: There will be five minutes for questions or comments on the hon. member's speech when debate on this bill is resumed.

Statements By Members
Official LanguagesMrs. Sylvie Boucher (Beauport—Limoilou, CPC): Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Minister for la Francophonie and Official Languages, the member for Edmonton—Strathcona recently announced a $750,000 investment to build community spaces in Edmonton's Saint-Thomas Community Health Centre.
I would like to remind the members that two Liberal ministers made empty promises they could not keep.
This announcement is the latest in a series of initiatives that are making a tangible contribution to the development of official language minority communities across the country at places like the Centre scolaire communautaire Samuel-de-Champlain in St. John, New Brunswick, the École canadienne-française in Saskatoon, which is being expanded and renovated, the École Allain-St-Cyr in Yellowknife, which is being expanded, and the Dawson College community theatre in Montreal, which is being renovated.
When it comes to official languages, our government is all about action and we are bringing in concrete measures to support communities. 
Government ProgramsMr. John Maloney (Welland, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, today I would like to stand with post-secondary students not only in my riding, from Brock University and Niagara College, but from across the country. 
The Conservative government has cut the $55.4 million summer career placement program. This program was designed so students could gain the work experience required to obtain full time employment after they completed their post-secondary education, while providing non-profit and charitable organizations, municipalities and the private sector with clever and industrious youth employees.
On average, 50,000 students across Canada are hired every year through the summer career placement program. The loss of this program means that students will graduate with less work experience, but will also be saddled with more student debt. In the short term it will make it very difficult for students to find jobs this summer. 
It is not clear why the Conservative government has decided to gamble with the future of the youth in our country. I call on all members of the House to join with me and our college and university students in opposing these cuts. To gamble with the future of Canada's youth is to jeopardize the future of Canada.
Canadian Television FundMs. Diane Bourgeois (Terrebonne—Blainville, BQ): Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Television Fund is in crisis. The minister's meeting with broadcasters this week resulted in a great deal of dissatisfaction because no solutions seem to be forthcoming. Cable companies feel that the minister wants to let the fund die. 
The Canadian Television Fund was established to promote the production of Canadian and Quebec content. Producers and artists who are creating, writing and filming series here have the right to know what is going on. Telling them would at least show a modicum of respect for them.
When will the minister have the decency to tell us what is happening and how she plans to deal with this crisis?
The survival of our television culture and thousands of jobs depend on it.
The EnvironmentMr. Nathan Cullen (Skeena—Bulkley Valley, NDP): Mr. Speaker, the effects of dangerous greenhouse gases are being felt in every region of Canada, and my riding in the northwestern corner of British Columbia is no exception. The devastation of the pine beetle is possibly the most tangible example of how global warming is impacting our day to day lives.
The people of Skeena—Bulkley Valley are demanding action and they are demanding it immediately. Last week I had the opportunity to tour across my riding, showing An Inconvenient Truth. Over 500 people came out to watch this film, discuss the issues and stayed to find out from where the solutions were to come.
Time and again I heard them tell me that we, as national leaders, cannot sit idly by. They insisted that we act and act quickly. They are committed to doing their bit and making personal choices that will help, but they are also insisting that government and industry also pull their weight.
On a day in Europe, when the international community is gathered to release the most condemning report ever issued by the world scientists, we as leaders in this country must act. On a day when it is reported that the biggest oil company is earning more than $40 billion, regulations must come in to prevent the biggest polluters from continuing their harmful ways.
Black History MonthMr. Rahim Jaffer (Edmonton—Strathcona, CPC): Mr. Speaker, every February we celebrate Black History Month. Yesterday the Secretary of State for Multiculturalism announced $77,000 in funding for the round table on Black History Month. 
This year marks the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade by the British Empire in 1807. Many African Canadians, including Black Loyalists, worked toward that historic step forward.
This is a time to celebrate many achievements and contributions of black Canadians who, throughout history, have done so much to make Canada the culturally diverse, compassionate and prosperous nation we know today. It is also an opportunity for the majority of Canadians to learn about the experiences of black Canadians in our society and the vital role this community has played throughout our shared history.
I would like to take this opportunity to invite all members to join the Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and I in a celebration on the Hill to mark this important occasion in the next few weeks.
Economic DevelopmentMr. Lloyd St. Amand (Brant, Lib.): Mr. speaker, I rise to bring attention to the lack of long term federal investment in rural southern Ontario.
Across Canada programs such as the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, the northern Ontario development program and the western diversification program are making a meaningful difference to the citizens of those areas.
Southern Ontario is the only part of Canada where rural economic development funding does not exist.
Despite what many policy makers believe, southern Ontario does face a significant amount of economic challenges. The declining farm, manufacturing and tourism industries are combining to cause financial distress to many communities.
In my riding of Brant, many families, businesses and individuals are finding it difficult to survive under these conditions.
I call on the government to recognize the need for a southern Ontario regional economic development initiative and to increase opportunities for citizens of Brant and all of rural southern Ontario.
Lifetime Achievement AwardMrs. Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, CPC): Mr. Speaker, it is my distinct pleasure to rise today and join the Upper Ottawa Valley Chamber of Commerce in honouring Pembroke businessman Mr. Charles Butler, who received the chamber's prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award for more than 40 years in the automotive business.
Charlie, as he is known to his friends and business associates, has been operating in the Pembroke area since 1963. Originally from the Maritimes 44 years ago, Charlie was a tank commander stationed at CFB Petawawa. With a wife and four children, after 12 years in the military, Charlie decided it was time to try something new.
Charlie proved to be an astute businessman. He built an automotive franchise from nothing to the success it is today, employing 80 people. That success has allowed Charlie to give back to the community.
While our community sees the large donations, like $500,000 to the Pembroke Regional Hospital, Charlie has a soft spot for others in our area, be it the families of former employees or the solders who are currently serving at CFB Petawawa.
On behalf of his friends, family and community, we congratulate Charlie on his many contributions to the Upper Ottawa Valley.
Restorative JusticeMrs. Carole Freeman (Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, BQ): Mr. Speaker, restorative justice is a concept of justice in which shared values and community participation are crucial. Many peoples practise restorative justice or have practised it sometime over the course of history.
The primary objective of restorative justice is to build a safer, healthier society by promoting the reintegration of an offender through a process of reintegration into a community group. Restorative justice always takes a humanistic approach, providing support for victims, allowing offenders to take responsibility for their misconduct and, above all, tackling the underlying causes of crime.
I would like to emphasize that the Bloc Québécois supports this principle of justice, especially in the current political context, since the government believes that imposing harsher prison sentences and sending more people to prison is the best way to reduce crime and delinquency.
Black History MonthMr. Jeff Watson (Essex, CPC): Mr. Speaker, Elijah McCoy was born in Colchester township to runaway slaves who fled Kentucky via the underground railroad. He studied mechanical engineering in Scotland, but racial discrimination denied him the opportunity to be a railroad engineer. Instead, he became a fireman-oiler with the Michigan Central Railway. Here he set about to remedy the poor on-time performance of railways from the need to stop to oil joints.
At his home machine shop, Elijah invented an automatic lubricator, receiving a US patent in 1872. His “Improvement for Steam Engines” allowed trains to run faster with less maintenance, allowing for the first time reliable scheduling and paving the way for our modern economy, a feat which changed the world as they knew it.
His genius for the automatic lubricator was most imitated but never equalled, leading businesses in search of his authentic article to ask for “the real McCoy”.
Today, during Black History Month, we not only celebrate a gifted African Canadian inventor, but I call upon the House to support me in having Elijah McCoy named a national historic figure.
Mr. Mario Silva (Davenport, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, in 1995, the Parliament of Canada officially designated February as Black History Month to celebrate the unique contributions of Afro-Canadians to our cultural heritage.
Consider, for example, William Peyton Hubbard, who was the first black person to serve as a mayor, when he served as acting mayor of Toronto between 1894 and 1913.
For those who came from around the world, choosing to settle in Canada in order to build a better life for themselves and their family, the Afro-Canadian culture fully contributes to the wealth and vitality of our country's traditions.
We recently paid tribute to Martin Luther King, who so eloquently shared his dream with the world. We too have a dream, one that is realized every day around us.
I am pleased to extend my best wishes to all Canadians for Black History Month.
Senate Tenure LegislationMr. Bruce Stanton (Simcoe North, CPC): Mr. Speaker, today is Groundhog Day. Yes, today Canada's own Wiarton Willie climbed out of his burrow. He did not see his shadow, so spring is just around the corner.
We also know Groundhog Day is a popular movie. It is a tale of a man who gets caught in an endless repeat of the same day, Groundhog Day. Every day he wakes up to the same characters, the same routine, day after day after day.
It seems the unelected Liberal majority in the Senate has been caught in their own version of Groundhog Day this week. On Tuesday, the Liberal senators stood up, they saw their shadow and adjourned the debate on the Senate tenure bill. On Wednesday, the Liberal senators stood up, saw their shadow and adjourned the debate on the Senate tenure bill. Yesterday, the Liberal senators stood up, saw their shadow and adjourned the debate on the Senate tenure bill.
Today is Groundhog Day. Willie did not see his shadow, neither should the Liberal senators. Why do they not pass Bill S-4 and limit Senate tenure?
JusticeMr. Bill Siksay (Burnaby—Douglas, NDP): Mr. Speaker, Mahmoud Jaballah, Mohammad Mahjoub and Hassan Almrei have been indefinitely detained on security certificates for over five or six years without charge or conviction and with no knowledge of the evidence against them. They are currently incarcerated at the Kingston Immigration Holding Centre, where they have been on a hunger strike for over two months, seeking resolution of grievances regarding the conditions of their detention. 
There is very serious concern for their health. Ten days ago a group of health care professionals released a statement noting the very serious health issues these men now face. They called for an immediate examination by an independent physician and daily monitoring.
The Minister of Public Safety and the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration must take significant measures to seek an end to this situation immediately. One potential solution would be to urgently appoint the Correctional Investigator of Canada to investigate the situation, speak to the men and make recommendations about a resolution. There is not much time to avoid very serious consequences. Action is required today.
Bobby ClowHon. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I take this opportunity to honour the life of and pay tribute to one of Prince Edward Island's favourite sons, Bobby Clow.
Since 1964, Bobby and his wife Verna operated Clows Red &amp; White in Hampshire, PEI, one of the island's best known country stores. 
Bobby was one of a kind, with a passion for and immense pride in his community. He was an active volunteer in too many activities to name. But it was with his humour and fun-loving ribbing that he left a lasting impression on everyone he met. As one friend put it, “If laughter is the best medicine, then he dished out an awful lot of medicine”. As another said, “Kids just loved him, not one didn't idolize him”.
Yes, Bobby Clow was one of a kind, a true character, a true citizen of his community and Canada. Passed from this life much too soon, the world needs more Bobby Clows.
We wish the best for his family and thank them for sharing Bobby with us.
Status of WomenMs. Nicole Demers (Laval, BQ): Yesterday, the provincial and territorial status of women ministers met to prepare an action plan to convince the federal minister that she needs to reverse her decision to slash the budget of Status of Women Canada, because the cuts will have a dramatic impact on women.
During the last election campaign, the Prime Minister proclaimed, “If elected, I will take concrete and immediate measures, as recommended by the United Nations, to ensure that Canada fully upholds its commitments to women in Canada”.
Women's groups were hopeful, but the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Status of Women has eliminated or modified programs that are crucial to meeting that goal, changing funding criteria, prohibiting advocacy activity, cutting 43% of the budget of Status of Women Canada, closing 12 of its 16 offices, abolishing the court challenges program and refusing to adopt improved pay equity legislation.
We must denounce this backward step and demand that the minister reconsider her decision, which is undermining women's equality and rights.
Minority Francophone CommunitiesHon. Raymond Simard (Saint Boniface, Lib.): When he was the leader of the official opposition, the Prime Minister signed a solemn commitment that read in part as follows:
 —I acknowledge that linguistic duality is one of the foundations of Canadian society and that the official language communities, and more particularly, the francophone and Acadian communities, are one of the pillars of this duality and consequently of Canada. By doing so, I agree to take every means necessary for the Government of Canada to promote their continued development. 
When he became Prime Minister, he quickly set to work, and minority communities have been suffering ever since: $5 million in cuts to status of women; $6 million in cuts to the court challenges program; $18 million in cuts to literacy programs; and closure of nine centres in Manitoba.
On Tuesday, at the Standing Committee on Official Languages, we learned that another program was threatened. 
The Réseau Santé en français, which is extremely successful, is very concerned that its funding will not be renewed for 2007-08.
The Prime Minister must reverse this decision and finally honour his solemn commitment to minority francophone communities.
Oil SandsMr. Brian Storseth (Westlock—St. Paul, CPC): Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Liberals finally unleashed their winning platform for Alberta. They want to shut down the oil sands.
 Yes, yesterday the Liberal natural resources critic, the member for Ajax—Pickering, said that his party would intrude on provincial jurisdiction and bring 10% of Canada's GDP to a crashing thud.
I understand that the Liberals do not care much about the west and will always pit regional interests against each other instead of building a united country, so why do I not put this in terms that the member might actually understand?
Sixteen per cent of oil sands related jobs are in Ontario. By 2004, the oil sands resulted in activity worth $102 billion for Ontario. That is energy, manufacturing, service and investment wealth, all based upon the oil sands.
 Is he telling companies and workers in his own riding that because his leader does not have a plan to balance energy production with environmental responsibility they should lose their jobs? 
That is not a real plan for Canada's energy sector or its environment. 
The Liberals had their chance and they did not get it done.

Oral Questions
The EnvironmentMr. Michael Ignatieff (Etobicoke—Lakeshore, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, Canadians take pride today that Sheila Watt-Cloutier, past president of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for her work in waking up the world to global climate change.
While she was sounding the alarm, the Prime Minister was actually raising money to fight Kyoto. In a speech at a fundraising dinner in 2002, he said: “As economic policy the Kyoto accord is a disaster. As environmental policy it is a fraud”.
Will the Conservatives now admit that they were irresponsible in their efforts to undermine Kyoto and the world international consensus on climate change?
Hon. Lawrence Cannon (Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, CPC): Mr. Speaker, obviously this is an issue that the former government tried to tackle and it did it in an unsuccessful way.
We are very pleased to see that action is being taken. Maybe it might be worthwhile to remind hon. colleagues in this House that “We didn't get it done”, said the hon. member a couple of months ago.
Michael Ignatieff: Mr. Speaker, it is the government's job to get it done now. It has no plan to get it done.
This Prime Minister hosted a fundraiser against Kyoto during which he talked about the “so-called greenhouse gas phenomenon” and described it as simply a hypothesis.
After years of opposing Kyoto and Canada's participation in this international effort, what is this government's current position on Canada's participation in the Kyoto process?
Lawrence Cannon: Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague just said a number of things, and one is that we are doing nothing. Well, nothing is when something has not been done. I think we could very well look at the inaction of the opposition.
In the past month we have invested over $2 billion in various initiatives to reduce greenhouse gases. As far as the issue of climate change is concerned, this is a real file and we intend to address it and get things done.
Michael Ignatieff: Mr. Speaker, the scientists gathered in Paris all agree that climate change is caused by human activity, but the new Minister of the Environment said in Paris that he was surprised that warming is the result of human activity.
If he is surprised, will the minister be surprised when all the world's scientists mock him for maintaining this ridiculous position?
Lawrence Cannon: Mr. Speaker, I have to say that the only mockery in this House is that engendered by my hon. colleague's friends, the members of the previous government.
Our colleague, the Minister of the Environment, recognizes and accepts the efforts that have been made. That is why he is in Paris today. He is meeting with people and he will read the report. These things have to be done and I invite our colleagues to work together with us to decrease greenhouse gases.
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable DevelopmentHon. Karen Redman (Kitchener Centre, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, in 1997 the Liberal government created the position of environment commissioner to provide sound, independent advice to Parliament about protecting Canada's environment and working toward sustainable development, but after this past week it appears that the environment commissioner is not as independent as Parliament had originally thought she would be.
Will the Prime Minister support a motion to establish an independent environment commissioner as an officer of Parliament?
Mr. Mark Warawa (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment, CPC): Mr. Speaker, we will look at all options, but in mentioning the environment commissioner, let us listen to what the commissioner said in the 2001 report: “The continued upward trend in Canada's emissions demonstrates that the government”, which refers to the Liberal government, “has not transformed its promises into results”. 
The Liberals could not get it done. In 2002 the federal government's sustainable development deficit was growing. They could not get it done in 2003. There is a gap between what that government said it would do and what it was actually doing. Good intentions are not enough. The Liberals did not get it done.
Karen Redman: Mr. Speaker, I fear my hon. colleague has missed the point of my question. I will repeat it.
Rumours that the dismissal of the environment commissioner is related to a report that she presented last September will simply not go away. We on this side of the House have always believed in the importance of having a true, non-partisan defender of the environment who reports to Parliament.
Would the Prime Minister ensure that the next environment commissioner has the ability to advocate on behalf of the environment? Will he also agree that only Parliament should be able to dismiss the commissioner from her position?
Mark Warawa: Mr. Speaker, we do appreciate the hard work of the commissioner and the Auditor General. In 2004, the commissioner went on to say in her report:
 Why is progress so slow? After all, the mandates and commitments are there, the knowledge of what to do and how to do it is there, and we know it can be done--some of our findings show that. I am left to conclude that the reasons are lack of leadership, lack of priority, and lack of will. 
The Liberals did not get it done.
Aerospace IndustryMs. Monique Guay (Rivière-du-Nord, BQ): Mr. Speaker, during the election campaign, the Prime Minister kept saying that he needed ministers to represent Quebec. However, what he forgot to tell Quebeckers—and the Boeing contract is a blatant example— is that he needed Quebec ministers to work against Quebec. New government, but same old Canadian formula for putting Quebec in its place.
Will the Minister of Transport and the political lieutenant for Quebec admit that by refusing to demand that Quebec be given its fair share, or about 60% of the contract spinoffs, the Quebec ministers, with an eye to their jobs, chose to put Canada ahead of Quebec's interests?
Lawrence Cannon: Mr. Speaker, we will make no such admissions since they are not true.
The facts are as follows. Colleagues on this side of the House, whether they are members or ministers, continue to serve the interests of Quebec.
With regard to this matter, we are confident that in Canada, and especially in Quebec, the aerospace industry will earn its stripes, but that will depend on the maturity of this industry and its ability to do the job.
Monique Guay: Mr. Speaker, Quebec was entitled to receive its due, that is the lion's share of the spinoffs. However to advance their careers, at least in the short term, the Conservative ministers from Quebec chose to abdicate their responsibilities to Quebeckers. The image is striking: in Trenton, Ontario, two Quebeckers will sign the contract and make official the surrender of the Quebec Conservatives.
Is the Minister of Transport and the political lieutenant for Quebec not ashamed to be part of such a regrettable spectacle, one that Quebeckers will surely remember in the next election?
Lawrence Cannon: Mr. Speaker, I am always flabbergasted by this kind of talk. To try to do something about the mystery of Quebec City, their solution was to parachute someone from Montreal into that riding.
With regard to the question, it is a little bit ridiculous to have the Bloc Québécois dictate economic development strategies for Canada. Its separation project is the most serious threat to the Canadian economy.
Mr. Claude Bachand (Saint-Jean, BQ): Mr. Speaker, in Trenton, Ontario—which must now be Canada's new aerospace capital—the government is about to confirm that it is abandoning the Quebec aerospace industry with the blessing of Conservative ministers and members from Quebec.
How can Conservative ministers from Quebec be yes-men to such a betrayal? It is obvious that they are nothing but a bunch of doormats.
Mr. Colin Carrie (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry, CPC): Mr. Speaker, this government is committed to ensuring positive economic spinoffs, dollar for dollar, from our military investments, at the same time strengthening Canada's industrial base.
This is exactly what we are doing. Under the IRB policy, it is the responsibility of the Minister of Industry to ensure that investments made here in Canada are of the highest quality. We will continue to work for that for our industries.
Claude Bachand: Mr. Speaker, how interesting that a member from Ontario leaps to the defence of the Quebec doormats when people start asking questions.
A year after they were elected, the Conservative members from Quebec have turned into the sycophantic servants of the federal powers that be.
How will they explain to their voters that they sold Quebec out to satisfy Canada? They will have to tell their voters that they have sunk about as low as cowards can.
Lawrence Cannon: Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois has been sounding like a broken record ever since it first came here. They accuse us of being traitors and doormats for the industry, yet the only people getting in Quebec's way and interfering with its progress are the members of the Bloc Québécois. Once again, I must say that if, at the very least, they participated actively in developing their communities, that would mean something. But that is not what they do. Every time a Quebec company has a chance to demonstrate its ability to participate in the world market, the Bloc steps in to quell their ambitions. Doormats indeed.
The EnvironmentHon. Jack Layton (Toronto—Danforth, NDP): Mr. Speaker, the experts have submitted their report to the Paris conference, which is currently underway. They predict that we will see an increase in heat waves and heavy precipitation. We will also see more tsunamis and cyclones. The crisis is both real and immediate, that much is clear.
When will the government take action, beginning, for example, with cancelling the massive subsidies to the big oil and gas companies?
Lawrence Cannon: Mr. Speaker, my colleague, the Minister of the Environment, is in Paris today. Of course, we all recognize that climate change exists. We have often said this and my colleague reiterated that fact.
There is no denying the determination shown by the scientific community and I must assure my hon. colleague that action is being taken. In fact, just a few weeks ago, we announced nearly $2 billion in investments, specifically targeted at precise and concrete action.
Jack Layton: Mr. Speaker, speaking of the billions of dollars the government is proposing to invest in this issue over the years, the fact is that right now it is investing $1.4 billion of taxpayers' money a year in the big oil and gas companies. These are the most polluting industries and they are also the most profitable. 
Why will the government not take action now and simply stand up and say that it is no longer going to put tax dollars like the previous government did, like it continues to do, into these big oil and gas companies that frankly have profits that are going through the roof and gouge people every day at the pumps?
Lawrence Cannon: Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is we have to take an approach here that is constructive and not destructive. The government is working on ways to strengthen not only our economy and remain competitive but at the same time go out and do what we have to do in terms of reducing greenhouse gases and reducing air pollution. 
That is the reason why we presented a piece of legislation that is being discussed in committee, a piece of legislation that wants us to regulate the industry across the sector. We are looking for everybody's--
[Interjection]
The Speaker: The hon. member for Bourassa.
Aerospace IndustryHon. Denis Coderre (Bourassa, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I ask this question as a federalist Quebecker.
In the Boeing C-17 affair, it is now clear that Canada will not see the direct economic spinoffs it needs to develop the aerospace industry, not in Quebec or anywhere else in Canada. The purchase of the C-17s demonstrated to what extent the Conservatives care more about Boeing's interests than the interests of Canadians. However, the terms of the contract with Boeing could be hiding other unpleasant surprises.
Did the Prime Minister have an agreement with President Bush for us to be excluded from the American security regulations—ITAR—thereby also excluding us from the discriminatory American dual-citizenship trade policy?
Colin Carrie: Frankly, Mr. Speaker, this member should be embarrassed. This member sat at the cabinet table with the Liberal government for 13 years and ignored industry. There were zero benefits to industry and zero jobs. This member should be embarrassed for bringing that up.
Denis Coderre: Mr. Speaker, that man will remain parliamentary secretary for a long time.
Yesterday, the unelected phantom minister, Michael Fortier, said “nothing in that contract will prevent any Canadian of any religion or nationality from working on those planes,--”. 
Now, the only way to do so is to be excluded from ITAR, the American regulations. 
We have learned that the C-17 contract will not be under a foreign military sale, so ITAR will apply, meaning that a contractor will not be able to keep an employee if he or she has double citizenship from one of the 25 countries banned by the U.S.A.
Who is protecting our charter--
The Speaker: The hon. Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Hon. Peter MacKay (Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, CPC): Mr. Speaker, as usual the member has run out of time with his theatrics. The reality on this subject is that we have been working very closely with American officials to bring this issue to the forefront. We want to ensure that both countries will be able to benefit from the ongoing discussions. 
We know that the member opposite would much prefer the approach that was taken by the previous government, which was of course to rent planes, not to build planes, not to give the Canadian forces the ability to transport their own troops, and to work with other countries on these important missions. He wanted to rent planes.
AfghanistanMark Eyking: Mr. Speaker, our mission in Afghanistan will only succeed if we ensure that all elements of the treaty approach are followed, yet the government has seriously neglected the diplomatic and development component.
I ask the minister responsible for international development, why is the government spending 10 times more on the combat mission than it is on reconstruction and development in Afghanistan?
Mr. Ted Menzies (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade and Minister of International Cooperation, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question, but once again his facts are very far from the truth.
The actual facts are that we need to spend money to defend the people who are there doing the development work. We heard this loud and clear from the defence committee that just returned from there. In fact, members from the member's own caucus said how important it was that we provide defence for the people doing the development.
Mark Eyking: Mr. Speaker, that is not what our members conveyed. There is a lack of information about the development and what is being done in Afghanistan.
Last year Colonel Heatherington said that we would see development projects completed by the year 2006. Well, it is 2007. The members of this House just returned and they saw disappointing results.
The reality is that the minister is not getting the job done. Why?
Ted Menzies: Mr. Speaker, it is far from the fact that the job is not getting done. We are seeing irrigation water flowing in canals that Canada's money has built.
We are seeing girls back in school who were not in school two years ago. We have solid quotes from the members who were there that defined how important security was before we let our Canadian people, who are doing the good work, go out in the country to help. They are getting the job done and it is very unfortunate that we criticize the good work they are doing.
Aerospace IndustryMr. Paul Crête (Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, BQ): Mr. Speaker, Canada wins. Boeing will get its contract without enough spinoffs for all of Quebec. The Minister of Industry, a faithful servant of the Montreal Economic Institute, is the submissive messenger.
How can the Minister of Industry claim to defend the Quebec economy when, from the very beginning, he calmly accepted the choice of Boeing, which penalized all of Quebec?
No matter if they are federalists or sovereignists, all Quebeckers are penalized by the subservient attitude of the Minister of Industry.
Colin Carrie: Mr. Speaker, nothing could be further from the truth.
Under our process, it is a fair bidding process and there are enough benefits for this procurement to be shared across all Canada. 
The real issue here is for Quebec, how many jobs were created by the Bloc Québécois? Zero. How many benefits were there for Quebec aerospace? Zero. How many benefits were there for the industry in Quebec? Zero. The Bloc Québécois gets an F while the government gets an A for action.
Paul Crête: Mr. Speaker, what he said is very typical of the Conservatives. The Minister of Industry is using the free market as an excuse for not acting in Quebec's interest.
Consequently, the Minister of Industry, who is from Quebec—as is the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities—is directly contributing to the weakening of Quebec's aerospace industry, and he knows it. All Conservative members from Quebec know it.
This kind of pitiful performance makes Quebeckers wonder what kind of wimp we have as a Minister of Industry.
Lawrence Cannon: Mr. Speaker, the members of the Bloc Québécois are again making inflammatory remarks. This contract will benefit not only Quebec, but all of Canada.
The objective is to procure suitable equipment for our military rather than leasing it or purchasing fictitious goods.
The House leader of the Bloc Québécois said on Monday, “—we will no longer have to pay for Canada's planes, we will buy our own and have them made where we see fit”. I wonder where—
The Speaker: The hon. member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques.
Ms. Louise Thibault (Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, BQ): Mr. Speaker, this afternoon, the Minister of Public Works, whom the Prime Minister had to appoint as a senator so that the Montreal area would be well represented in cabinet, will sign a contract that is detrimental to Quebec's aerospace industry, a high-tech industry crucial to economic development in Montreal and Quebec.
Is that how this minister represents Montreal in cabinet, by ignoring Montreal's and Quebec's interests and blithely agreeing to irretrievably damage the Quebec industry?
Colin Carrie: Mr. Speaker, Industry Canada has been dealing with this policy on Canadian benefits for over 20 years now. The department has always allowed companies make investments in Canada based on the best business practices and what makes the most sense to them. We will continue with that policy to ensure that it is fair across this entire country.
Louise Thibault: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Public Works is washing his hands of this whole affair and claiming that his colleague, the industry minister, is responsible for regional benefits. But he also bears some responsibility as a signatory to the contract. He is also implicated in the damage to Quebec's aerospace industry and the loss of jobs in Quebec.
How can the Minister of Public Works dare claim to represent Quebec when he is nothing but the Prime Minister's fawning follower?
Mr. James Moore (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services and Minister for the Pacific Gateway and the Vancouver-Whistler Olympics, CPC): Mr. Speaker, as usual, the Bloc Québécois is talking out of both sides of its mouth. The Minister of Public Works does his own homework and his own work for Quebec and Montreal. He will prove it this afternoon when he signs the contract. Quebec has a presence in our government and in our cabinet, with Michael Fortier.
This contract will benefit Quebec. Our system of government works well for Quebec and Montreal, with Michael Fortier at the helm in Montreal.
Young OffendersHon. Marlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, there has been another backward justice announcement from the Conservative government showing that it has absolutely no interest in effective smart justice policy. The Youth Criminal Justice Act has been in force for three years and it is effective. Juvenile crime rates are falling across the country.
Why does the minister think he is more qualified to determine what penalties should be imposed on our youth offenders rather than our judges?
Mr. Rob Moore (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the hon. member knows better than to think that we would comment on speculation, rumours or leaks. The government listens to Canadians. We have heard what they have said and we are committed to our commitments on strengthening the Youth Criminal Justice Act to promote fairness and effectiveness, and restore justice to our system.
Marlene Jennings: Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives will never let facts get ahead of good scare tactics.
Canadians trust their judges far more than they do the Conservatives. Youth justice requires more appropriate measures designed to rehabilitate juvenile delinquents and help them re-enter the community.
The minister will accomplish nothing by creating lifelong criminals. When will he stop his unwarranted attacks on our judges and our justice system? When?
Rob Moore: What Canadians have said loud and clear, Mr. Speaker, is that they have no faith whatsoever in the Liberal revolving door justice system. They want us to add deterrents and denunciation to the system. That is exactly what we are doing. I ask her to work with us to make our communities and our streets safer for all Canadians.
Child CareMs. Ruby Dhalla (Brampton—Springdale, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, when it comes to child care, the Prime Minister never got the job done. Out of the 125,000 spaces that he promised Canadian families, he has not delivered one. He is zero for 125,000.
We all know that the Prime Minister has plagiarized the Liberal climate change initiatives. The Conservatives have plagiarized Liberal homelessness initiatives. When will the Prime Minister get to work and start delivering child care spaces that Canadian families and parents so desperately need?
Mrs. Lynne Yelich (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development, CPC): One thing, Mr. Speaker, that we will not plagiarize is their universal child care because our universal child care is exactly that. It is universal. It has provided dollars for each and every child under the age of six. 
It should not be forgotten that the Liberals promised a national day care system. The kids who would benefit had kids of their own before the Liberals ever even got around to it.
Ruby Dhalla: Mr. Speaker, the member needs to check her facts because what the Conservatives have put forward is certainly not a universal day care plan. They cannot continue to check off child care as an accomplishment because the bottom line is that they never got the job done. They, rather, abandoned Canadian families with their taxable $25-a-week allowance.
They continue to ignore the advice of child care advocacy associations and provinces. Capital funding will not create new spaces.
On behalf of all Canadian parents and families, when will the government get to work and start creating child care spaces?
Lynne Yelich: Mr. Speaker, the member knows quite well that we are working on that and it will be delivered in the spring. 
Income TrustsMr. Mike Wallace (Burlington, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the Governor of the Bank of Canada has given his support to the government's decision to tax income trusts.
Yesterday, the member for Markham—Unionville dismissed Governor Dodge's professional assessment, saying that the central bank governor works for the government and that he cannot possibly say the government is wrong.
Could the  Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance confirm that there was no change to the independent status of the Governor of the Bank of Canada and will she assure this House that there has been no interference or influence brought to bear on the governor or on the bank?
Ms. Diane Ablonczy (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the finance critic for the Liberals knows very well that the Governor of the Bank of Canada is an independent officer. 
He also knows that not only is the Governor of the Bank of Canada highly respected here in Canada but internationally as well. I expect that is why the Liberals appointed the Governor of the Bank of Canada and why the finance critic, who was a member of the cabinet, endorsed that appointment. 
However, I can understand why the Liberals would be rather embarrassed, because the Governor of the Bank of Canada said that levelling the playing field for business was long overdue. 
Instead of looking at the mirror, I guess some people just try to shoot the messenger.
JusticeMs. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP): Mr. Speaker, the Pickton trial has focused enormous attention on the tragedy of the missing women from Vancouver's downtown eastside. It raises deeply disturbing questions about why Canada's justice system failed and why it failed sex workers.
The recent parliamentary report shows the harmful effects of the law and yet the  Prime Minister has dismissed it.
I am not asking the  Minister of Justice to comment on the trial, but I am asking him to be clear about what the government will do to protect the health, safety and human rights of sex workers.
Rob Moore: Mr. Speaker, the government is certainly sympathetic to everything that is taking place in that regard. We will of course take the time to review the report of the subcommittee on solicitation laws and its recommendations and we will respond in due course.
However, there can be no doubt that prostitution victimizes the vulnerable, typically women, and it forces those who have few choices into a world with even fewer choices.
Libby Davies: Mr. Speaker, I have to say that vague assertions and sympathy will not change the reality.
I took Sereena Abotsway to vote. She died at age 32, never able to vote again because this House failed her, failed to change laws that could have protected her. I never want to wake up again to the news of a murdered street worker.
The federal government must come to terms with the contradictions of its position and recognize that law reform is urgently needed.
How much longer will the government ignore these women?
Rob Moore: Mr. Speaker, we are listening to all stakeholders. There are many aspects to the problem of prostitution and ensuring the protection of those who work in the sex trade is a priority. However, the government does not feel that decriminalization is one of those appropriate responses.
Status of WomenHon. Maria Minna (Beaches—East York, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the minister stated that her office had contacted women's groups in Vancouver with three proposed meeting dates.
I will quote an e-mail sent to me yesterday from women's organizations. It reads: 
 What the Minister said in the House [Thursday] was incorrect. We had not been contacted by her office at the time her statement was made. We had not been offered dates on which we said we were unable to meet. 
Contrary to the minister's accusation against me, will she apologize to this House for providing false information?
Hon. Bev Oda (Minister of Canadian Heritage and Status of Women, CPC): Mr. Speaker, my office had offered a date and, in fact, we were told the organization representatives could not be in attendance because they were going to be in New York City at that time. 
We have now gone back and we are waiting for their reply on the new suggested dates.
Maria Minna: Mr. Speaker, the minister continues to do the same. I have evidence in the emails here. It is clear that the minister was the one deceiving and intentionally misleading the House yesterday, not me. 
[Intervention]
Some hon. members:  Oh, oh!
The Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member cannot suggest that members are deliberately misleading the House. There is a procedure for doing that and we will not have it during question period. The hon. member will put her question forthwith.
[Interjection]
Maria Minna: Mr. Speaker, those were the minister's words against me yesterday and if they were valid yesterday, they are valid today. I am sorry but they are according to Hansard.
The Speaker: We are not getting into an argument on it. The minister certainly did not say the member deliberately misled. If she had, she would have been ruled out of order.
We will move on to the next questioner. The hon. member for Hull—Aylmer.
Hog IndustryMr. Marcel Proulx (Hull—Aylmer, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the Government of Quebec has delegated three ministers to try to resolve the crisis shaking the hog industry as the closure of the Olymel plant in Vallée-Jonction draws near.
The provincial ministers of economic development, labour and agriculture are in talks with Olymel and the CSN, which represents the unionized employees, in order to break the impasse. In the meantime, the Conservative government is twiddling its thumbs and not doing anything.
Why is the government not taking some action?
Hon. Christian Paradis (Secretary of State (Agriculture), CPC): Mr. Speaker, it is true that the current situation at Olymel is serious. However, we have repeatedly said that they can count on our support. The federal government will intervene in due time, when asked to do so. Currently, working groups are forming since this is a private matter. Producers may be indirectly affected, as well, and our programs will respond to that.
It is incorrect to say we are twiddling our thumbs. It is time to stop playing petty politics at the expense of the Olymel workers.
Marcel Proulx: Mr. Speaker, when the mad cow crisis shook the cattle industry, the Liberal government did not hesitate to allocate nearly $1 billion to support the producers.
Today, we have a minister whose riding is at the epicentre of the hog industry crisis and he is acting as though this were a trivial matter, sticking to his laissez-faire capitalist ideology.
Does the minister not realize that his abstract theories do not put a whole lot of bacon on the kitchen tables in Beauce?
Christian Paradis: Mr. Speaker, let us be clear. With the CAIS program, producers have enjoyed historically high margins. Currently they are in need of immediate assistance. The federal government is working, and is openly saying so, on improving risk management in order to help our producers. Furthermore, by the end of 2006, some $4.5 billion had been paid to the producers. We never saw anything like that under the Liberal government, so they can stop lecturing us.
Aerospace IndustryMs. Pauline Picard (Drummond, BQ): Mr. Speaker, the Conservative ministers from Quebec have nothing to be proud of today. Signing the contract with Boeing is a pathetic display of just how little influence they have with this government. They are just a small part in a big machine that is weakening Quebec's aerospace industry. For people who claim to be defending Quebec, this spectacle is not only disappointing, it is appalling. 
Did the Minister of Industry calculate how many jobs he sacrificed in Quebec in order to keep his limousine?
Colin Carrie: Mr. Speaker, I am surprised that the member has such little confidence in the Quebec aerospace industry.
Our plan is clear, transparent and fair. All Canadian companies will have the opportunity to work with this. The real people who are letting down Quebec, remember, is the Bloc Québécois because under the Bloc, Quebec has received zero jobs and zero benefits for the aerospace industry.
Pauline Picard: Mr. Speaker, everything old is new again. When we are talking about Ontario's automobile industry, concentration is seen as a positive thing, but when it comes to concentrating the aerospace industry in Quebec, oddly enough, the same reasoning no longer applies.
Will the Conservative ministers from Quebec tell us why that is?
Colin Carrie: Mr. Speaker, I can only repeat that under the IRB policy it is the responsibility of the Minister of Industry to ensure that investments made here in Canada are of the highest possible quality. This is exactly what we are doing to resupply our long neglected military.
Canadian Wheat BoardWayne Easter: Mr. Speaker, Standard &amp; Poor's rating agency identified, not once, not twice but eleven times, the federal government as directly responsible for the reduced credit rating of the Wheat Board.
The Prime Minister and his ministers stand accused of wilfully harming the economic viability of the board, not its directors, nor farmers, but the government.
Does the minister deny this statement of facts by Standard &amp; Poor's, “Standard &amp; Poor's expects that government support of CWB will continue to deteriorate as long as this government lasts”?
Does the minister deny that statement?
Mr. David Anderson (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Canadian Wheat Board, CPC): Mr. Speaker, it comes as no surprise that the Wheat Board is being affected, because the Liberals, the NDP and radicals on the board for the last year have said that it is going to fail.
The government and the minister have made it clear that the Wheat Board is not going down the tube. It will be one of the options available.
I wonder why the member for Malpeque does not ask questions that really matter to farmers, such as why the main grain buyer for the Algerian government would be saying, “The Canadian Wheat Board's selling price in Algeria is very low, since our country benefits from preferential prices. This preferential price saves Algeria several tens of dollars per tonne purchased. No other country offers us such benefits”.
Why does he not ask about that?
Status of WomenJoy Smith: Mr. Speaker, the opposition parties continue their campaign of fearmongering among Canadian women. The misinformation and outrageous accusations are unfounded.
If we were to listen to the rhetoric of the opposition, there would be no money for women under a Conservative government. It is time to set the record straight. 
Could the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Status of Women tell the House if there have been any applications under the modernized and renewed status of women program?
Bev Oda: Mr. Speaker, we have received 56 applications and more to come as organizations, which were previously shut out, now develop projects that will really help women in their communities.
The first approved application under the new terms and conditions is for the Prince George New Hope Society. Their project is to facilitate the exit of young women, particularly young aboriginal women, in Prince George and northern B.C. from the sex trade.
This project will provide support for social services and make a safer and healthier transition for their exit--
The Speaker: The hon. member for Sackville—Eastern Shore.
Fisheries and OceansMr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Eastern Shore, NDP): Mr. Speaker, in 1997 the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the fisheries of Canada is a “common property resource” and must be managed in the interests of all Canadians.
The Government of Canada has just released Bill C-45, one of the most sweeping changes to the Fisheries Act we have ever had in this country. It privatizes the fishery, corporatizes the fishery, destroys fish habitat and allows DFO officials to be off the hook for their decisions.
In 1992 the cod collapse cost the Canadian taxpayer $4 billion and nobody was held accountable.
Will the minister now bring in a new act that reflects the real wishes of fishermen in this country?
Hon. Loyola Hearn (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, CPC): Mr. Speaker, those were very interesting comments from the member. Last year, when the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans had the choice of whether to deal with the Fisheries Act or take up the main problem that it should be dealing with, the northern cod in Newfoundland and Labrador, that member voted to deal with the Fisheries Act because it was so important to bring in a revised Fisheries Act.
We brought in a revised act, one that his provincial government supports, one that the Atlantic provinces support and one that fishing groups support. Everybody supports it except him.
Peter Stoffer: Mr. Speaker, there is a saying in Atlantic Canada, “when you are walking on thin ice, you might as well dance”, and that minister is doing one hell of a jig.
The fact is that his own parliamentary secretary said this was a management tool of ITQs. Senator Comeau, a Conservative, said in his report that ITQs favour the corporate sector.
This revised act would turn a public resource into the hands of management of the corporate sector of this country, thus destroying the hopes and dreams of thousands of fishermen, their families and communities right across the country.
Why is the minister doing this?
Loyola Hearn: Mr. Speaker, it would be extremely difficult to dance to music like that. The member is completely and utterly out of tune, as he usually is.
Let me say to the hon. member that the fish is a public resource. It is owned by the people of Canada and managed by us. It will not be turned over to the private sector. 
The revised act would ensure that individuals who are licensed to fish that resource will fish it for the benefit of the people of Canada.
National DefenceHon. Keith Martin (Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are choosing to mothball our navy's refuelling and supply ships two years before the new ships are supposed to come online, apparently to save money. This will leave our navy without a refuelling capability for two solid years, severely restricting their capabilities. That is the government that inherited the best fiscal situation of any government in history and it has chosen to shaft our navy.
Will the Minister of National Defence reverse this foolish decision and enable our current supply ships to remain functional until the new ones come online?
Hon. Gordon O'Connor (Minister of National Defence, CPC): Mr. Speaker, this government is committed to improving the state of the military, the navy, the army and the air force, unlike the previous government that just did not get it done. No decisions whatsoever have been made with respect to the future of the armed forces. 
Everything one reads in newspapers and hears on TV is sheer speculation.
Western Economic DiversificationMr. Leon Benoit (Vegreville—Wainwright, CPC): Mr. Speaker, for 13 years, while the Liberal government funnelled the money of hard-working Canadians into its pet projects, often through political friends, the needs of western Canadians were neglected. Now we see the leader of the official opposition being critical of the west and particularly critical of Alberta.
Could the new Minister of Western Economic Diversification to tell us how the Conservative government supports and encourages development in the west?
Hon. Rona Ambrose (President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada, Minister of Intergovermental Affairs and Minister of Western Economic Diversification, CPC): Mr. Speaker, Canadians finally have a government that respects the entire country, while Liberals have continuously ignored and disrespected the interests of western Canadians, and the new Liberal leader is nothing new.
How does the new Liberal leader talk about hard-working Albertans? He said, “All these workers living too fast for the easy money in the north”. These are proud people who have worked long, hard hours to build their communities and they deserve our respect. 
What is doubly insulting is that this lecture came from a man who sat at the cabinet table, while hard-earned tax dollars turned into real easy money for Liberal insiders. That is something western Canadians will never forget.
Points of OrderMr. Richard Harris (Cariboo—Prince George, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order concerning a question of the member for Bourassa earlier. I bring this point of order up because I fear there may have been an intention to mislead the House and perhaps the viewers of this by television, whether they be young Canadians or new Canadians.
In his question, the member for Bourassa used the phrase “whether from Quebec or Canada”. This is important. The last time I looked the province of Quebec was a part of Canada. I am concerned that maybe new Canadians, who would be studying for their citizenship, would be confused by the reference.
 Did the member intentionally mean to say that, or was it was an unintentional slip?
Denis Coderre: Mr. Speaker, I have been a member of the Liberal Party of Canada for 25 years and I have fought the separatists, so I do not need any lessons in patriotism. I said that the problem exists all over Canada, not just in Quebec.
However, what I find worrying is that we have a Minister of Foreign Affairs who has done nothing in the negotiations to protect Canada's interests. He will have—
The Speaker: I am having trouble following a point of order in all this. It sounds to me like vigorous debate and it seems to be ongoing. I have grave doubts that this is a point of order. This might provoke more reaction and I am not sure this is helpful. 
[Interjection]
Dick Harris: Mr. Speaker, I would ask you to check the Hansard and you will see the words, the quote. What the member for Bourassa said was not consistent with his words earlier in the day.
The Speaker: I will review the Hansard and if there is something that has been raised today by either hon. member that appears to contradict what is there, or leads me to believe that there has been a breach of the rules of the House, naturally I will get back to the House at once. I am sure the hon. member will be relieved to know that I will make that review.
Wayne Easter: Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary, in his answer to my question, failed to provide proper information to the House on an organization that he has responsibility over.
He quoted from an article in the French press that has been since clarified by the CEO of the Canadian Wheat Board, an appointment of theirs, and I will quote into the record what he said:
 Mr. Kacem has advised us that some of his comments in the original article in the French daily were not properly interpreted by the journalist...A review of the original press article in French clearly shows that at no point does Mr. Kacem say that they enjoy 'very low prices'. The main message in the— 

The Speaker: I think we really are getting into a debate. The hon. member quoted the article. The member for Malpeque could send him another, and if there was an error made, he could stand up and correct it. However, I do not think we can have a debate about what was said by somebody else outside the House as a point of order. I do not think it is a point of order, what other people have said.
 What has happened here, from what I have heard, is the member quoted something that was improperly translated. These things can happen. There are sometimes errors in translation of our debates.
I will hear briefly from the hon. parliamentary secretary on this point.
David Anderson: Mr. Speaker, I think what we can do, if you like, is to provide the article in French and translate it into English. I think we will find that it says basically what I said, which was the Algerian grain buyer was quoted as saying that the Canadian Wheat Board's “selling prices in Algeria are very low since our country benefits from preferential prices. This preferential price saves Algeria several tens of dollars per tonnes purchased. No other country gives us such benefits”. I think that is clear.
The Speaker: Might I suggest that we have already heard this one. Might I suggest the hon. member for Malpeque put his question on the late show and have a more extended debate then. It will ensure that he has four minutes to read whatever text it is that was there and have it translated by our own translators, so he has the benefit of excellent translation services right here in the House. I think that might be the useful one for this.
Maria Minna: Mr. Speaker, I withdraw the words “intentionally mislead,” but the minister could not have stated the opposite of the truth with greater precision. I refer to the Hansard of yesterday's question period where the minister referred to my question as “misleading and deception”.
The groups received the very first phone call last night at 5:50 eastern time, a full three hours after she answered my question. In effect, she is still misleading the House today and misled the--
The Speaker: I stress that this seems to be all debates arising out of questions and answers that are given in question period, which is not the normal subject for debate, except on the late show. Members are free to raise these issues there.
Is the minister seeking to respond to this in some way? I am not sure there is a point of order her.
Bev Oda: Mr. Speaker, I have responded with the information. If I might say, I think the important thing for us to do to help women is to ensure that there is a meeting. We are enabling to make myself available to listen to the women who would like to speak to me.
The Speaker: Again, this is a debate. We are not dealing with points of order here and I stress that. The hon. member should put her question on the late show, as I have suggested to the member for Malpeque and have a more extended discussion about it.
When questions are asked and answers are given in question period, or replies are given, it is question period and not answer period, there is bound to be disagreement from time to time on what is said in either the question or in the answer. It is not for us to continue the debate after question period. This is unnecessary. It happens, in my view, with a little too much regularity these days. I prefer we move on to tabling of documents which is next.
Mr. Tom Lukiwski (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I do have a legitimate point of order with regard to Bill C-288, the Kyoto implementation bill.
In your ruling of September 27, 2006, you concluded that Bill C-288 did not require a royal recommendation. I would appreciate your consideration of two developments that have occurred since that ruling.
First, the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development amended Bill C-288. In particular, I would like to draw two of these amendments to your attention. 
One amendment was to include the require in clause 5(1)(a)(iii.1) that the government report:
 measures to provide for a just transition for workers affected by greenhouse gas emission reductions 
The second amendment added a new requirement in clause 10 for the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy to undertake research, gather information and advise the minister on the new climate change plan required by the bill. 
The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy is funded through government appropriations and reports to Parliament through the Minister of the Environment. While the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy does currently undertake research on the environment, the specific research this amendment requires is a new and distinct responsibility and as such would involve expenditures for a new and distinct purpose.
On May, 2005, the Acting Speaker ruled that expenditures for a new purpose require a royal recommendation:
 —a royal recommendation is required not only in the case where more money is being appropriated, but also in the case where the authorization to spend for a specific purpose is being significantly altered. 
The second development that I wish to draw to your attention is recent public comments made by the member for Honoré-Mercier that Bill C-288 would necessitate the spending of public funds.
In a CBC radio program on December 9, 2006, the member stated, “The bill forces the government to meet its Kyoto commitments”. When the member was asked to elaborate on the cost to meet the emission reduction targets in the Kyoto protocol, the member stated:
 Even the worst case scenario, which would be to buy almost all the credits on the international level, is within the range of the cuts of the GST they made. 
The 2006 federal budget estimates that the cost of reducing the GST from 7% to 6% will be in the $8.69 billion range over the next two years.
It seems to me that Bill C-288 has been written in a way that appears to avoid specifying a requirement for direct new government spending.
However, the member's recent media statement indicates his belief that the bill would result in a very large requirement for new government spending. To use the member's own example, this could involve costs of over $4 billion a year.
Since this new information has become available after your ruling on Bill C-288, I would request that you clarify your ruling on whether Bill C-288 obliges the government to spend additional public funds.
If the House agrees, I am prepared to table a copy of both the transcript of member's remarks in both official languages.
Hon. John Godfrey (Don Valley West, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I have two different issues.
Bill C-288 does not propose spending. It proposes monitoring. That is the whole purpose of it. What the government does outside the bill to meet climate change is the government's business. The bill does not do more than simply say the government must have a plan for Kyoto and must tell how that plan works.
The second point is that the two amendments do not propose specific programming spending. Both amendments could be dealt with by reallocating funds within the relevant agencies, whether it is the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, which could reallocate within its spending package what it chose to do and drop something else. So could the worker adjustment funds. There is no specific spending proposal that cannot be met by reallocating funds within those two categories. 
Therefore, I request that this be taken into consideration in making your decision, Sir.
Hon. Ralph Goodale (Wascana, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary's intervention at this point really does underscore the government's great fear with respect to climate change and the Kyoto protocol.
 Even today in Paris the Minister of the Environment said that he was, as of today, surprised to learn that climate change occurs as a result of human activity. Maybe that surprise is the reason why, as President of the Treasury Board, he spent the last year cutting $5.6 billion in climate change programs, which goes directly to the issue of fiscal flexibility available to the government and the very point the parliamentary secretary made.
One of the ministers, in answer to a question today in question period, made the point that the government now has, as of the last two months, $2 billion in new money on the table with respect to climate change.
 All of this reinforces the point just made by the member of my party who spoke before me, which is that indeed the flexibility exists.
There is nothing that has changed that would materially affect your previous ruling, Mr. Speaker, and the government in fact does have the resources available, and this bill does not call upon the government or require it to spend anything new. It is indeed a matter of reallocation, as you yourself found in your previous ruling.
[Interjection]
Tom Lukiwski: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Wascana just underscores my point that this bill will obligate the government to spend new money. As you know and I know, this requires a royal recommendation.
I thank the member for Wascana for supporting my case.
Mr. Pablo Rodriguez (Honoré-Mercier, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I am not surprised at this new move by the government, which from the start has done everything in its power to kill this bill. It does not want to do anything to implement the Kyoto protocol or fight climate change. 
I would like to point out that absolutely nothing has changed. We debated all this the last time around. You deliberated on this point and, in your wisdom, rendered an articulate, thoughtful ruling that a royal recommendation is not required.
My colleague is trying to distort what I said. But I stand by what I said: it is up to the Conservatives to decide that they want to do. They do not have to spend a cent. The bill says that there are measures to be taken, but it is up to them to decide. They can take action simply by making regulations if they want, which would cost absolutely nothing. None of the amendments changes anything in this respect. What I said on the radio the other day was that, if they wanted, they could purchase credits from other countries. There would be a cost associated with that, but it would be their choice. The bill does not force them to do so. The bill does not force the government to do anything. It can regulate, it can buy credits abroad, and it can set limits. There can also be credit trading. All that is possible. It may or may not cost money. The ultimate choice is up to the government, and only the government.
Mr. Gary Goodyear (Cambridge, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I want to add that the member opposite just pointed out that it could or it may not, but the fact is that the member himself said that it could cause the spending of government funds, and on this side of the House, we follow the rules when it comes to spending taxpayers' dollars.
The Speaker: Order. I think we have heard enough on this for now. I will take the matter under advisement. I want to thank all the members who have made submissions. Obviously in my view the ruling was correct, but I will examine the amendments and the arguments that have been made in respect to the amendments to the bill and get back to the House in due course.
I also note that this bill is up for debate today. 
I will not likely make my ruling before the debate begins today, but another day. In that case, the vote will no doubt be delayed.
The hon. member for Ottawa—Vanier on another point of order.
Hon. Mauril Bélanger (Ottawa—Vanier, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I raised a question yesterday and hoped that the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons could address this point of order. 
The Minister of Canadian Heritage and Status of Women, in one of her answers, cited a letter from a minister in the Government of Ontario. I feel that the Standing Orders of this House require that the letter be tabled here in this House.
Did the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons follow up on that request?
Hon. Peter Van Loan (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I was unaware of the request to table it, but I would be happy to pursue that.

Routine Proceedings
Income Tax ActLawrence Cannon: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 32(2), I wish to table the draft legislative proposals to amend the Income Tax Act.
Committees of the HouseGary Goodyear: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour today to present the 30th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs regarding membership of the committees of the House, and I should like to move concurrence at this time.
The Speaker: Does the hon. member for Cambridge have the unanimous consent of the House to propose this motion?
[Intervention]
Some hon. members:  Agreed.
The Speaker:  The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?
[Intervention]
Some hon. members:  Agreed. 
 No. 
The Speaker:  All those in favour of the motion will please say yea. 
[Intervention]
Some hon. members:  Yea. 
The Speaker:  All those opposed will please say nay. 
[Intervention]
Some hon. members:  Nay.
The Speaker:  In my opinion the yeas have it. I declare the motion carried.
(Motion agreed to)
PetitionsJoy Smith: Mr. Speaker, I have over 200 names per petition and I have four petitions, so that is a lot of names that continue to come into my office on the issue of opening up the traditional marriage question. I would like to submit these to the House. They continue to come in even after we have addressed the question.
Joy Smith: Second, Mr. Speaker, we are getting petitions on human trafficking in which Canadians are calling on Parliament to combat this horrendous crime of human trafficking. They want it done to make sure that children, women and others are protected from these predators.
Mario Silva: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present another petition, one of several that my office has received, dealing with the issue of Bill C-316, calling upon Parliament to reinstate funding to literacy programs cut under the Conservative government.
I present the first of several petitions, which is from the Waterloo region. The petitioners note the importance of literacy for social and economic development and the impact that it has on our society. They recognize the need for Canada to help the 38% of Canadians who have trouble reading and writing. They also recognize that the $17.7 million cut from the funding of literacy programs will contribute to $10 billion in annual literacy costs to Canadians. I stand with citizens of the Waterloo region in calling for the reinstatement of literacy funding and petitioning the government to undertake a national literacy strategy to ensure that all Canadians have the opportunity to achieve this vital skill.
Mario Silva: Mr. Speaker, I have another petition signed by members of the Canadian Auto Workers. It again calls on Parliament to look at the issue of undocumented workers. It states the fact that undocumented workers play a vital role in the Canadian economy, that the Canadian government and this Parliament must do everything possible to make sure this situation is dealt with, and that the bureaucratic barriers that impose a lack of eligibility for Canadian citizenship need to be addressed to deal the issue of undocumented workers.
Gary Goodyear: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition with approximately 35 names on it. The petitioners are calling upon Parliament to reopen the issue of marriage and to repeal or amend the Marriage for Civil Purposes Act in order to promote and defend marriage as the lawful union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.
Questions on the Order PaperTom Lukiwski: Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.
The Speaker: Is it agreed?
[Intervention]
Some hon. members:  Agreed.

Government Orders
Canada Elections Act[Stage Direction]
 The House resumed consideration of Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Public Service Employment Act, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1. 
The Speaker: When the debate was interrupted for question period, the hon. member for British Columbia Southern Interior had completed his remarks. There remain five minutes for questions or comments on the hon. member's speech. I therefore call for questions or comments.
Bill Siksay: Mr. Speaker, my colleague from B.C. Southern Interior has given us a very helpful intervention in the debate on Bill C-31.
I think we have a bit of a phantom bill here. It is a bill that is trying to address an issue that has not proven to be a serious problem in Canada. We keep hearing about the need to address the opportunity to commit electoral fraud when we know that the actual incidents of electoral fraud have been very few. In fact, it is hard to get anyone to give a very clear example of a conviction, let alone a charge, of electoral fraud in Canada, yet we have this whole piece of legislation that largely attempts to deal with this phantom issue of electoral fraud.
In this corner of the House, we believe there are some very serious issues around electoral reform that need to be addressed. I know that one of them is very important to us and to the member for British Columbia Southern Interior. It is the whole question of proportional representation. We want to make sure that the House is truly representative of all the political ideas that are found in Canada and that Canadians are interested in.
In the current first past the post system, that just is never the case. It is also never the case that the representation in the House clearly reflects the popular vote in Canada or reflects the diversity of the Canadian population or the participation of women in Canadian politics.
I wonder if the member for British Columbia Southern Interior might comment on what is really needed in terms of electoral reform in Canada and particularly on proportional representation.
Alex Atamanenko: Mr. Speaker, of course we need fairness in our electoral system. Regardless of age, regardless of how much money one has, and regardless of not living where one has a chance to vote, it is important to make the voices of ordinary Canadians heard.
I have quoted examples of the system we have now. It really is unfair that a party can get a certain percentage of votes and yet become a majority government. We have seen that in many provinces and we have seen that at this level.
My party and our leader want to try to somehow bring this whole question of proportional representation before Parliament. Our hon. colleague from Vancouver Island North is going to be discussing this very shortly. I just hope that we have a good debate on this and that we, as representatives of the people of Canada, come up with a system that is fair to all Canadians.
Ms. Denise Savoie (Victoria, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I certainly agree with my colleague that proportional representation would provide a better representation of Canadians in the House. Some Canadians are concerned that proportional representation could lead to more fragile governments and minority governments. They see the tenor of debate in the House right now and they get really worried.
It seems to me that we have the worst of both worlds. We have the winner take all system which leads to the kind of confrontational debate that we have seen and a minority Parliament that brings out the worst as people continually arm themselves in the fear of an election.
Could my colleague talk about how proportional representation might lead to a more collaborative approach to governance in Canada?
[Interjection]
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Royal Galipeau): The hon. member for British Columbia Southern Interior will want to check with the Chair for signals about time.
[Interjection]
Alex Atamanenko: Mr. Speaker, we have seen around the world where there is chaos in the parliamentary system. That does not seem to work. We have seen the other extreme here where we have no representation proportionally. That does not seem to be working.
There is a way of coming up with a healthy compromise. It is not my turn now to get into specifics but I think that this can be debated. The concerns are real and I think we can come up with a system that would be really good for all Canadians.
Mauril Bélanger: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate on Bill C-31 at the report stage. This bill includes a number of amendments that are basically grouped into three sections, in addition to the amendments proposed by the hon. member for Ottawa Centre, at the report stage. I will focus primarily on the foundation of the bill, that is, the amendments concerning the electoral list, its preparation, maintenance, use, precision and accuracy. 
From time to time, it is a good idea to evaluate the process in order to ensure that elections—either Canada's general elections or byelections, the elections that bring us into this House—are properly structured and accurately reflect the will of the population.
Recently, since the list was created, many questions have been raised about its quality.
Without criticizing anyone in particular, I believe it is important from time to time for parliamentarians to assess the situation and offer corrections, if needed. That is essentially what we are doing today. The Chief Electoral Officer and the committee have thought about this issue and made recommendations to the government. Generally speaking, the government seems to have accepted these recommendations to ensure that the permanent list of electors is better structured and that the accuracy of the information is improved. 
It will be possible to obtain information from both the federal and provincial levels. The information could be combined better and given an identifier in order to avoid the duplication of names and so forth. In my opinion, these amendments should generally improve the permanent list of electors.
There is also the whole issue of voter turnout. We have heard comments about this from our colleagues. They mentioned the decline in voter turnout in Canada. In the past, questions were raised about the quality of the list and the number of duplications. Would this situation not be artificially lowering the turnout rate among the Canadian public? If the list is inflated with a few too many duplications, then such an improvement in preparing the list could eliminate this problem.
That is what I had to say about the first series of amendments to the bill. I did not hear anyone categorically oppose them.
The second series has to do with the need to identify the electors on polling day or when electors want to register on the list of electors on polling day.
On this matter, I share the concerns and apprehensions of a number of my colleagues that the system, as it is currently structured, could be abused.
On election day, when one goes from polling station to polling station and sees several dozen people waiting to register on the list of electors, one is entitled to ask what is wrong with the system.
There is not necessarily any fraudulent activity involved but, obviously, something is not right with the system. In my opinion, it is up to us to eliminate all opportunities for abuse. I believe it is fair to ask for photo identification, a government identification card or an identification card that is recognized or authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer. Most Canadians have no problem with that.
These days when we get on a plane, we have to have photo ID. It is also required when applying for credit and when young people want to have a drink.
Photo ID is often required to join a political party, or to fight for a nomination in a riding or the leadership of a party. 
I think that asking voters and citizens to present photo ID is quite acceptable and normal. I would perhaps be less inclined to accept this if there were no other means of registering. We have to recognize that some citizens may find it difficult to obtain photo ID.
The system will continue to allow citizens to register without photo ID under certain conditions. Someone must be able to verify that the information provided by the person wishing to register is true and accurate.
I have to admit that I did hear of some situations in certain areas of the country where, on the day of the election, hundreds, even thousands, of individuals arrived to register. This was cause for concern or, at least, food for thought.
The parliamentary committee did its work and proposed legitimate recommendations. The government has accepted them and we will now proceed with these changes so that Canadians will have greater confidence in our electoral system.
I must admit that I am not inclined, at this point at least—unless I am shown evidence of fraud—to go so far as to require a voter's card. We have heard about them and some colleagues have seen them in certain countries.
In some situations, such as when an electoral process is just being introduced, a voter's card can be beneficial. Last summer, two of my parliamentary colleagues and I had the opportunity to participate in the elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo as observers. Voter's cards really went a long way toward inspiring confidence in the electoral process there.
I do not think we are at that stage, so I do not think we need a voter's card. But that is not what the bill is proposing. The bill is proposing that voters can use any piece of government-issued photo identification, such as a driver's licence, a passport or a health card. I support that.
I think that most Canadians will recognize that this makes sense.
Our colleagues from the New Democratic Party highlighted one of the administrative measures in Part 3 concerning casual hiring—from 90 to 125 days. The Chief Electoral Officer requested this power. The committee acted wisely in leaving that power with the Public Service Commission which will be able to increase the number of days a person can work casually from 90 to 125 days per year, at its discretion. The Public Service Commission has a great deal of knowledge about and experience managing the public service and will be able to bring in appropriate regulations in this case. I am comfortable with that way of doing things. 
From the comments I have heard, all of my colleagues recognize that it is essential that Canadians have confidence in the electoral process. When issues come up, it is our duty as parliamentarians to stop, think and find a solution if we can. If it is theoretically possible to abuse the system, we must act to eliminate that possibility, at least in theory. That is what this bill is proposing. 
All in all, this is a positive bill that will move things forward. It will not stop us from checking periodically to make sure that the spirit of the bill is being respected and that those goals are being met, and, if they are not, bringing in new solutions.
Mr. Paul Dewar (Ottawa Centre, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I respect my colleague's take on this bill. He said that it is important for citizens to have trust in the system; no one can disagree with that. However, I would challenge him on the remedies that are provided in this bill. 
Most people think the need to have photo identification is reasonable. We on this side of the House think so. But now there are additional barriers in place. If one does not have access to those documents, we are going from allowing people to vouch in a statutory declaration to only allowing one person to vouch for one other person. We are taking away that opportunity, particularly for those who are homeless. There is no question that will restrict people from voting. We heard that from witnesses at committee. At committee I asked the Chief Electoral Officer if this was a problem. I asked him how many people had been charged with fraud and he told me that none had. We have to question the purpose of this bill. 
The issue around privacy is something that is very disturbing to me. The bill as amended by the Bloc and supported by the member's party would allow Elections Canada to have birth date information. This would allow all Elections Canada workers to verify that the person who was voting was the actual person. 
Under the bill, birth date information would also be given to all political parties. All of us here know that is about our having that personal information to target voters, get our message out and raise funds. What does my colleague think about birth date information being shared among all political parties?
[Interjection]
Mauril Bélanger: Mr. Speaker, in response to my hon. colleague's first question, whether it is reasonable that a person can be authorized to vouch for the information of only one other person, in other words, an individual cannot vouch for five or six people, I would say, yes, I think that is reasonable.
Otherwise, we would have a situation in which the representatives of the political parties, for example, could sit at a polling station and would be responsible for saying yes all day long. We would be no further ahead. I think that is reasonable.
If this proves in fact to be too stringent, Parliament, in its wisdom, could correct the situation. However, I do not believe that this will be necessary. In my view, the proposal is reasonable.
The question concerning people's dates of birth is very delicate. I would point out that an incident occurred here in this House. A member of the government party received some information at her office concerning passport applications. It seems that she could have later used that information to send greetings for birthdays and so on.
Some would say that this was not an appropriate way to obtain information.
In my opinion, it is the responsibility of each political party, of each member and candidate for all the political parties, to use all personal information very carefully and judiciously. Candidates who do otherwise will certainly pay the price.
Denise Savoie:  Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Public Service Employment Act. This bill flows from a committee report that sought to address certain concerns about the election process. In my opinion, everyone on both sides of the House wants an election process that is as impeccable as possible. However, careful attention must be paid to the negative effects certain sections of this bill may have. My colleagues who were members of the committee attempted to mitigate these effects by proposing certain amendments.
We should also remember that Canada does not have to make any drastic changes. I believe that Canada's Chief Electoral Officer stated that the integrity of our electoral system is intact and that there were, at the very most, only two or three cases of fraud in the last elections.
I would like to talk about certain sections of the legislation that we are discussing. First, some of them could deprive the most vulnerable of their right to vote. Second, they would allow political parties to assume the right to receive personal information, such as the date of birth of Canadians. I will start with this last point. 
As I mentioned, the intent behind taking all possible measures to reduce the possibility of fraud is excellent. However, providing all political parties with personal information, such as birth dates, is symptomatic of a big brother state.
What in the world could justify giving political parties this information, aside from allowing MPs to make a birthday call for crass political reasons or to better target voters? This is not about reducing fraud. It is simply about targeting voters to get personal information to improve political parties' messaging. The Conservative Party, for example, is already spending fortunes to find out what would make voters less likely to vote for the Liberal Party rather than focusing on the issues. We are now developing personality attacks in Canada. I think Canadians will be very irritated when they find out that political parties can now have that kind of personal information.
It seems to me that political parties already have enough information, if we judge from the kinds of political ads that are presently being aired. Why make political opportunism more rampant than it is right now in Canada? I ask my colleagues to be attentive to this tool that Liberals and Conservatives are proposing and want to create through this law. The tool will shape the use, as noted scientist Ursula Franklin says. If we do not foresee the impacts of the changes that we are proposing through this law, we will not make a good decision.
Talking about good public policy, I would like to go back to the question of the new requirements for one piece of government issued photo ID showing a name and address, and two pieces of ID authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer showing the name and address of the voter, or the requirement to take an oath, or to be vouched for by another elector.
On the surface, this might seem fairly benign or innocuous, but in reality it seems that this bill could result in thousands of individuals who lack proper identification due to poverty or disability, or who have no stable address, not being able to exercise their right to vote because of the identification requirements of this bill. People who are homeless or temporarily housed often do not have identification that reflects their addresses or their stay in a shelter. During the last election I spoke with some homeless people on the street and that was in fact their case. They could go to a homeless shelter where the staff there could vouch for many of them, but this possibility would be removed for them. It would further disenfranchise those people.
My colleague from Ottawa Centre put forward recommendations at committee that would have addressed these concerns. These included the use of a statutory declaration as an alternate means of identification for an elector to prove his or her identity. I believe we also proposed an amendment to allow for a representative of a recognized agency, such as happens now, to be authorized to vouch for the agency's clientele as authorized by the local returning officer. These amendments were defeated by members of the other parties. 
We should talk about one of the real problems that has occurred, and that is with respect to enumeration. I know personally that my daughter-in-law, who lived with me six years ago and has voted since then in a number of elections, still receives her voter slip at my address. There has been a real problem in performing proper enumeration in Canada and this should be corrected. That would be a way of reducing the possibility of fraud. This bill just does not do it.
The bill does require other amendments, for example, the proposed amendments to the PSE Act that are, more or less, buried in the bill. Those amendments could, potentially, have a significant impact on employment patterns in the federal public service where, clearly, the Conservative government is talking about more flexible employment and more flexibility in departmental hiring. We have a concern about what that might mean.
The bill is not good in its present form and I would urge my colleagues to consider some of the amendments that have been proposed by my colleagues.
Mike Wallace: Mr. Speaker, I would like confirmation from the hon. member. A byelection will take place in my riding in Ontario on February 8. This is provincial byelection and therefore does not affect us but it does relate to us. I have received a number of calls from individuals telling me that when they went to the polling booths they were not asked for any ID or their voting card. They were only asked who they were and their name was checked off the list and they voted.
This bill, in my view, would prevent that from happening. Individuals would at least need to show ID. 
I want to make it is absolutely clear and put it on the record that the member who spoke to this and the New Democratic Party support the need for individuals who are exercising their right to vote to show a form of ID or have a person vouch for who they are so that people who do not live in the riding or people using the names of people who have, unfortunately, passed on are not voting in our elections and determining the outcome without the proper authority to be a participant in that election.
[Interjection]
Denise Savoie: Mr. Speaker, clearly, our party supports proper identification. The issue about proper identification was not raised by my party. The issue we raised had to do with the voucher required and the changes therein. Some of the problems that he raised could very clearly be addressed with universal enumeration.
Mr. Blair Wilson (West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-31, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Public Service Employment Act. 
Canada is a great democracy. We have a long tradition of being one of the most open, fair and inclusive democracies in the world. To honour that tradition, though, we must continually strive to improve both the integrity of our electoral process and its accessibility. By so doing, we allow ordinary Canadians the opportunity to exercise their right to vote easily and with confidence.
This bill, I believe, aims to further these goals. It is based on the recommendation of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs and the report, “Improving the Integrity of the Electoral Process: Recommendations for Legislative Change”. This report, in turn, was based in part on recommendations from the Chief Electoral Officer.
The bill would amend the Canada Elections Act to improve the integrity of the electoral process by reducing the opportunity for electoral fraud or for error. It would require that, before voting, electors must provide one piece of government issued photo identification that shows their name and address, or two pieces of identification authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer that shows their name and address , or they can also take an oath and they may be vouched for by one other elector who has photo identification from that riding.
These changes would do much to improve the consistency of our electoral process. Too often the identification rules have been applied in an inconsistent manner, unfairly placing demands on some citizens that others do not have to meet. 
In the last election alone, I encountered several instances of inconsistent behaviour. For instance, anecdotal reports from scrutineers in my riding suggested that voters were rarely challenged for identification in one area of my riding but continually challenged in other areas. At least one voter in the latter area had to go home to get her identification. 
This inconsistency is a product of our current rules which only require that identification be checked when an electoral officer, the candidate or a candidate's representative has reason to doubt the identity of an individual wanting to vote. It is regrettable when different citizens are held to different standards across our country, something that is all too possible under our current state of affairs.
I would also like to stress that the vouching procedure has been retained. Anyone who has no suitable identification can still be vouched for by another person with valid identification, ensuring that none of Canada's vulnerable population will be denied the right to vote.
 The new rules, however, also introduced safeguards against serial vouching by allowing each elector to only vouch for one person and to not allow vouching by electors who have been vouched for before. This would stop an abuse that has been experienced around Canada.
One instance I know of, on which I have heard consistent complaints, is in the riding of Trinity—Spadina where over 10,000 new voters were registered on election day. It is almost inconceivable that 10,000 people in one riding would be vouched for on a serial basis. These are the types of potential abuses that this legislation is aiming to stop.
The bill would also amend the Canadian Elections Act to make operational changes to improve the accuracy of the National Register of Electors. It would facilitate voting and enhance communications with the electorate. It would amend the Public Service Employment Act to permit the Public Service Commission to make regulations that would now extend to the maximum term of employment of casual workers. These changes are all welcome.
It is also pleasing to see a practical approach to interprovincial cooperation in these changes. Currently, the act permits the sharing of information between provincial governments and Elections Canada. However, the Chief Electoral Officer can only share data in the registry. He cannot share source or preliminary data or other data that is not incorporated in the registry itself. Both the Chief Electoral Officer and the committee have recommended that he should be able to share all data and, accordingly, the bill would expand the scope of data that is permitted to be exchanged.
The bill also would allow a common sense improvement to the information collected by the Canada Revenue Agency. It would create a citizenship box on the tax returns so that taxpaying residents who are citizens of other countries do not end up on our electoral rolls as they still do today.
Bill C-31 would also allow the Canada Revenue Agency to share information about deceased electors, ensuring that the deceased do not end up on our voters list.
While the government did not incorporate all of the committee's recommendations into the bill, it stated that when it did not accept these recommendations it had a fundamental disagreement with principle, items required further study or that we had received inadequate testimony that had been unable to reach a definitive decision during the committee proceedings.
A major concern of the Liberal members of the committee is to ensure that the bill allows aboriginal status identification to be deemed acceptable proof for voting purposes. Government officials have clarified that the text of the bill requires government issued photo ID with an address or government issued photo ID without an address. This would include band status cards but they would need to be accompanied by a letter from the band council or something, such as a phone bill, that would have the person's number, name and address to corroborate the claim that he or she was indeed eligible to vote in a specific riding.
My riding of West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country is home to a large aboriginal population. It is unfortunate that the turnout in polls in the first nations community in my riding is well below the average for the riding as a whole. As parliamentarians, we must work to improve their participation and it would be irresponsible to put an unjustified obstacle in their way. First nations members should be able to use their aboriginal identification to vote, full stop.
On this side of the House, the Liberal Party supports changes to the Canada Elections Act to protect against the likelihood of voter fraud and misrepresentation. We need to ensure that aboriginal photo identification is an acceptable form of voter identification. We also support strengthening the enumeration process, particularly on reserve communities and other areas of low voter enumeration. 
A photo identification is essential because on election day it would allow the volunteers and the workers at Election Canada to facilitate Canadians who have the right to vote and ensure no mistakes or voter fraud are involved in what we know is an outstanding electoral system. We need adequate safeguards to ensure that eligible Canadians are able to vote, to prevent fraud and to ensure that no one is impeded in his or her ability to vote.
The bill achieves these aims and ensures the integrity of the Canadian electoral process.
Nathan Cullen: Mr. Speaker, I know my hon. colleague from British Columbia has some first nations reserves in his riding.
The last time the member went out visiting, door knocking or held any community forums on a first nations reserve did he take much account of the street signs and the house numbers that existed or did he do any sort of a plebiscite on the number of first nations people who had telephone numbers, addresses and letters from the telephone company ready to go? I have 19 different first nations communities and I know he is getting some help from a colleague in my riding.
Our first nations have many challenges to participating in our electoral process. It is without dispute that first nations people participate far less in the voting process than non-first nations, and that needs to be fixed. The first nations in my communities are expressing great concern over the suggestion that they need to go to the band council office to get a letter that will allow them their charter right to vote. At a basic level, the bill opens it up to a charter challenge, quicker than the member can stand up, for impinging upon an individual's right to vote. 
The hon. member talked about voter photo ID. I am not sure if he has checked any status cards lately but he can let me know if he has seen voter photo ID on those cards or if he has seen phone bills that will account for every first nations person on reserve.
The point is that we in this place must do everything we can to allow first nations people to participate in a democracy and to allow more first nations representation in this place. 
I am just not sure of the hon. member's experiences. I want to know his personal experiences of being out in the reserves, of going door to door and talking to people and finding out what capacities and abilities they have right now to participate in the process, and what the effects of the bill will be. 
This is a very serious concern and we cannot dismiss it with glib anecdotes. We know that we need a real enumeration in this country. His party, when in power, refused to participate in it. The current government refuses to spend the money on our most basic rights, which is to know where the electorate are and to have a proper enumeration. We have absolutely nothing to tell other nations about a voting system until we perform that basic function, which we have not done for years.
I wonder if the hon. member could comment on this simple idea and, again, allude to the many experiences I know he has had on first nations reserves.
[Interjection]
Blair Wilson: Mr. Speaker, the two issues the hon. member raised are very important. One is enumeration, and we have to do a much better job of that on our first nations reserves. I have three reserves in my riding, the Squamish First Nation, the Sliammon First Nation and the Sechelt First Nation.
 Between 2004 and 2006, the voter turnout in those areas has increased. My wife and I have spent a lot of time knocking on doors there, talking to people in their homes. They are very anxious and energized to get involved in the electoral process.
The changes the bill puts forward, however, would require that the administration of the bill would accept first nations status cards as adequate identification. With the exception of what the hon. member said, these status cards do have picture identification, so they would be acceptable from the standpoint of picture identification on their card. He should check with his area.
The experiences of first nations voters in Canada differ from coast to coast to coast. The bill is trying to deal with some of the general problems that we have in a lot of our urban areas as well as some of the rural areas. The bill would help considerably in voter remuneration and cut down on voter fraud. 
As I mentioned briefly, when I was discussing it, one of the major concerns on the voter fraud was in the riding of Trinity—Spadina and the fact over 10,000 citizens were signed up on the day of the election, which is incredibly hard to believe that 10,000 people would come out and would be serially vouched on that day. I understand as well that the Chief Electoral Officer has instigated an audit and is reviewing that right now, and we will see if he gets to the bottom of it.
However, the difficulty is that unless there is some teeth in the legislation, there will be difficulty in auditing it.
Bill Siksay: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-31, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Public Service Employment Act.
I speak strongly in support of the amendments at report stage put forward by my colleagues from Ottawa Centre and Vancouver East. I thank both of them for their long term work on the issue of full participation in elections in Canada in terms of both democratic reform and fair elections. Both the member for Ottawa Centre and the member for Vancouver East have been long-time and strong advocates for the participation of all Canadians in the electoral process, particularly marginalized Canadians, to ensure they do not lose their franchise in Canada. I know the amendments that they have put forward, which we are debating at this point, have come out of that experience and work.
New Democrats have very serious concerns about the bill. As has been heard over the course of several days of debate on it, we are very concerned about what this does to the electoral process in Canada and how this affects the most marginalized people in our communities. We want to ensure that we have a fair electoral system and one of which we can be proud and in which we have confidence.
There has been constant talk from the government, and from the Liberals and the Bloc, that the bill is about stopping opportunities for voter fraud. It is not about stopping voter fraud. It is about stopping the opportunities for voter fraud, and that is because it is hard to point to exactly where the problem is with the current situation. Where exactly is the problem with the current voting process and with presenting oneself on election day to vote?
The Chief Electoral Officer was asked that question directly at the committee when he was testifying in relation to the bill. What he said was very interesting. He said that there had been a few isolated incidents of attempted voter fraud, but nothing systemic or large scale. He said that there were some investigations underway, but there were no current charges. Over the course of the last few days, we have constantly heard about the need for this, but we have never really heard very many specifics about the record of charges or convictions around voter or electoral fraud in Canada. That is because there have been very few, if any, convictions for voter fraud in Canada.
We keep hearing about anecdotal evidence. The previous speaker from West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country talked about anecdotal reports. That is all well and good, but I do not think we develop legislation based on anecdotal reports. We need to develop legislation out of real experience and real problems that exist in our communities and with legislation and law in Canada.
Anecdotal reports just do not cut it. We have all heard those kinds of reports. Sometimes I think they are stimulated by partisan competition between electoral parties and scurrilous charges that have nothing to do with the reality of the process at the time of an election.
I really believe the bill sets out to try to solve a problem that does not really exist. It is a phantom problem of the opportunity for electoral voter fraud. It is kind of like the need for the big foot rabies protection act. It may exist, but it may not and we had better get to work solving it right away. I do not think that is a way in which we should be proceeding in the House.
Other issues are far more important in terms of electoral reform, but we have not spend any time on them in the House. Nor did the committee spend any time on them. 
The whole question of proportional representation is something that Canadians know goes to the heart of the problems with our electoral system. It goes to the heart of improving our electoral system. Yet we have not been spending time on figuring out a way to implement that in Canada to ensure that all political ideas in Canada, all political ideas that Canadians hold, are represented in Parliament and that groups are represented, all ethnic minorities and racial minorities, and that women are represented in numbers representative of their place in our communities.
We need a system that takes those kinds of considerations into account and we do not have that now in the first past the post system. We need to ensure new approaches to government rather than the winner takes all approach that we have now. I think there would be spinoff benefits for that.
Some people say that we will be in an endless minority government situation. I do not fear that. I believe we will learn new ways of doing politics that stress cooperation and coalition building. I also do not fear the models of other countries where there is a proportional representation system. People sometimes say, “Do we want a Parliament like Italy?” It does not seem to me that Italy has collapsed as a country because of the wide representation in the Parliament of Italy.
People do not seem to recognize that Israel has a very fine tuned proportional representation system. Yet the Parliament of Israel, The Knesset, has never failed to act in the national interest of Israel when push comes to shove. 
Those are good examples to remember. There are different ways of doing politics than the one where a party does not receive a majority of votes cast by Canadians, but it gets a majority in the House and then runs roughshod over all the other political ideas that are of importance to Canadians.
We should have spent more time on this legislation, ensuring that there was universal enumeration at each election. We all know, those of us who have run in campaigns or who have organized political campaigns, that there are huge flaws in the permanent voters list. An NDP suggestion to go back to a universal enumeration at each election was defeated as Bill C-31 was being considered in committee.
That is the crux of the matter. We have heard about huge numbers of voters being left off the list at elections and the problems that those have caused on election day. We need to go back to a system that ensures that each time we have an election in the country we seek out all the potential voters and ensure they are on the list, so they can exercise their franchise.
Some simple measures, which do not need legislation, would go further to deal with potential voter fraud. We could have done, and I think we could still do under the current provisions of the current electoral law, measures such as putting voter cards in sealed and addressed envelopes, so the information on a voter postcard or voter card could not be viewed or copied by other people. A measure such as that would be a significant step toward preventing the opportunity for voter fraud, one that does not require this legislation nor new legislation.
I also want to talk about the provision of the bill that was added on an amendment, I believe, by the Bloc and supported by the Liberals. Now it seems the Conservatives have caved in and are supporting it as well. It is the birthdate information that will be collected as part of the building of the voter list and it will be distributed and shared with political parties.
I am not at all concerned that Elections Canada officials and employees have access to that information as part of ensuring a fair electoral process. However, huge difficulties with an amendment that would see this information provided to all the parties. It is a huge invasion of privacy. It is an invitation to identity theft. 
There is no need and no justification for political parties to receive this information. There has been chatter in the hallways of Parliament that MPs are looking forward to having birthdate information so they can call constituents on their birthday and wish them a happy birthday, or so political parties can more finely tune their polling or their distribution of political information in constituencies. There is absolutely no need for that kind of invasion of privacy. It is a huge grab of private information by the political parties.
The restrictions around vouching are unacceptable. We heard a criticism of serial vouching. In many neighbourhoods and communities that will disenfranchise many people. The fact that there will have to be a person who is on the voters list in that poll to vouch for another person and that this person can only vouch for one person will limit the access of many people to the voters list and to exercise their franchise. There is no excuse for that kind of limitation.
We should be doing what we can to encourage people. If there is a person who is working in that area and who knows people and where they live, there is no reason why they should not be able to vouch for more than one person.
We see a steady decline in voter turnout. We need to take measures that work toward increasing the turnout. The legislation goes in the opposite direction. It increases unfairness and reduces the ability of people to participate in the electoral process. For that reason I cannot support the bill. 
Mr. Thierry St-Cyr (Jeanne-Le Ber, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I would like to put a question to my colleague from the NDP. He spoke about the fact that no one was ever prosecuted in Canada for voting illegally, spinning that as a sign that all is well. What that shows, in my opinion, is that there is a problem. It would be rather unrealistic, and perhaps naive, to think that there has never been anyone anywhere in Canada who voted illegally. In Quebec, “Infoman” Jean-René Dufort has reported that it was actually possible to vote more than once.
The reason no one was ever prosecuted is simply that it could not be proven that an individual voted more than once because that individual did not identify himself or herself. In the event that a voter is listed twice on the voters list and this list shows that an individual by that name came out to vote, it is impossible to prove that this individual did come out and vote twice. All that can be established is that two individuals voted under the same name. 
Does my hon. colleague not think that, on the contrary, ID should be required, as provided in the legislation, so that people who vote illegally can be prosecuted? How can it be established beyond a reasonable doubt that an individual voted twice if that individual was never required to show any proof of identity?
[Interjection]
Bill Siksay: Mr. Speaker, I believe we would go farther if we did a proper enumeration and had a good voter's list. We would go farther if we had a voter's list that was created at every election rather than the permanent voter's list that we have now that we know is deeply flawed.
I also believe that we need to ensure that we have the resources available to pursue issues of electoral fraud when they crop up. There are lots of people in all of the polling places such as representatives of Elections Canada and representatives of political parties. Not all political parties take the opportunity to scrutinize the process seriously. During my years as an election volunteer, I was the only representative of a political party at a polling place scrutinizing the process. All of us have an obligation to watch the system more carefully and scrutinize the process. We have the resources in the current law to deal with any of the problems that crop up. 
The measures in this legislation disenfranchise people and seek to address a problem that we have not identified clearly as a problem. I just do not think that is the way to go.
Jay Hill: Mr. Speaker, the New Democratic Party seems so concerned about disenfranchising voters. We want to ensure that everyone possible has the opportunity to vote. I think that is clear. It is not just the NDP that is concerned about that.
As we travel around the world encouraging other countries to become more democratic, we have to ensure that our system is beyond reproach. We have to ensure that our system has the highest possible voter integrity. I believe, and I think most Canadians would believe, that some responsibility rests with the citizen. 
I find it a bit ironic when we strongly advocate that other nations ensure their voters are identifiable, that they are citizens of that country when they cast their ballot to ensure there is absolutely no opportunity for voter fraud, yet somehow in Canada we shy away from that. We think that is unacceptable. That would appear to be a discrepancy. I would ask the member to comment on that.
[Interjection]
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Royal Galipeau): The hon. member should know that he has 40 seconds to reply.
[Interjection]
Bill Siksay: Mr. Speaker, I do not think anybody is shying away from that responsibility. Legislation currently exists in Canada that guarantees a fair process and guarantees to punish those who would seek to manipulate the system unfairly. 
The Chief Electoral Officer in his own testimony said that there were very few investigations and hardly any convictions. He said there were no current charges concerning electoral fraud in Canada. The systemic problems in our system are not as serious as others would have us believe. I think we are talking about a phantom problem. We are removing people from their franchise by-- 
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Royal Galipeau): Resuming debate. The hon. member for Skeena--Bulkley Valley.
Nathan Cullen: Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the hon. member for Burnaby—Douglas, for his passionate defence of trying to strike some balance in the approach whereby the government seeks to allow citizens to participate fully in electoral processes and vote with a clear conscience. 
It seems to me that in many of the decisions we take in this place, we are constantly trying to strike a balance, personal liberties versus security, questions of economy and the environment. Here we are trying to strike a balancing point between allowing true voter participation, allowing people their charter rights. That is one of the basic rights, the third right in our charter. It has been very clear and upheld continuously by the Supreme Court of Canada: the right to vote, the right to participate as a free engaged citizen.
We tend to take some of these freedoms for granted and yet over the course of human history and human governance, the right of each and every individual citizen to vote is a relatively recent phenomenon. 
I can remember when I first started campaigning in 2003, I would visit first nations communities in my riding. They would recall the name of Frank Howard, an MP that stood in this place and represented Skeena for many years. It was Mr. Howard who along with a Liberal colleague and with some support from the then Progressive Conservatives filibustered for almost three years, every Friday afternoon, to ensure that first nations in our country had the right to vote, because at that time they did not.
At the time, the first nations people, particularly those living on reserve, were deemed to be less than other citizens. Clearly, there is no one in this place, none of the candidates who run for any of these parties or any parties not represented here, who would suggest that we would return to that. The fight was a long fight. The fight was a struggle. There were many so-called wise and ancient experts in this place who debated against Mr. Howard's proposal and said first nations should not have the right to vote; as there were, years before, those who argued against the women's movement and their right to vote.
It seems to me that we have come to a certain enlightened place. We know that every person who is a citizen of this country deserves the right to vote and should be respected for that right.
I think a lot of us, as elected officials, are thinking back to our own election processes and whether we saw discrepancies or challenges.
 I am reminded of the recent provincial election. There are five provincial ridings that go into my federal riding. There was one in particular where we had a fellow running for the New Democrats provincially. We won two out of three main ones. His was unsuccessful in electoral terms, but was extremely successful in another term, and this was a condition that they set out for themselves at the beginning of their campaign. 
There is a strong first nations presence in the Bulkley Valley: the Gitksan and the Moricetown Bands of the Wet'suwet'en. Yet, the voter turnouts have been just absolutely abysmal for many years. This fellow, whose name is Doug Donaldson, was a candidate for the New Democrats. He has been adopted into the Gitksan community. He made as one of his campaign efforts to go door to door and help people register to vote. 
As I was chatting with some of my Liberal colleagues and I have talked to some in the Conservatives as well, particularly on first nations reserves, the connections of an address and photo identification are very difficult to come by at times. There can be more than one family living in a household. So, if the phone bill comes, it will identify one person who is paying that bill, but not another. 
So, when a first nations person shows up at the office to vote and is required to show a proof of a phone bill, that might not be forthcoming, and the identification given out by Indian Affairs shows a photo, but does not show an address.
Then in rural Canada, as in my own case, we use box numbers for a lot of the identification. We have seen that when there is more than one voting office in a community, a box number does not suffice. It does not tell the Elections Canada person where the people actually live. Are they at the right polling station? Should they be at another one? Under this bill, these people are not able to vote.
It seems to me that in our efforts at striking a balance between fairness and allowing people to access our democracy, we want to remove the barriers from people who have traditionally not participated in a democratic process. That seems like an intention I would hope all my colleagues would agree with.
The reason I bring up the case of Mr. Donaldson in the Bulkley Valley is because they were starting to run out of ballots at some of their voting offices. Their signup campaign of going out door to door and saying, “Please make sure you register to vote”, was so successful that Elections Canada had almost been lulled to sleep. It had gotten so used to first nations people in that part of the world voting 10% or 20% of the time that it just simply did not expect a 50% or 70% turnout at the polls. This was an encouraging thing. This was an encouraging thing for every party that was participating in that race, particularly for fist nations people. If people do not vote, politicians do not tend to pay much attention to them.
The currency of our fare is in the voting process and knowing that people will support our positions. But we can also look at those who are economically constrained. We know the statistics, they are not in dispute. They do not tend to participate. Therefore, the decisions that get made in this place do not tend to reflect the interests of those who are not participating in our democratic elections.
There has been a constant allusion to the massive electoral fraud some of my colleagues have talked about. Yet when the Chief Electoral Officer of this place testified before the committee, a fellow who is charged with working on behalf of Parliament, who is non-partisan and does not work for any party, when he was asked about fraud, he said it was not a leading concern. When his officers come back from the field, are briefed on the last election, are asked about what went wrong, whether there were enough polling stations and if they were in the right place, the people who are actually at the polls overseeing our democratic process are not referring to these massive cases of fraud. 
I do not know how members can stand up in this place and keep referring to fraud when in 2000 there were three charges, in the 2004 election there were none, and in 2006 there was one. The Chief Electoral Officer and the people working for him are telling us as witnesses that this is not a problem. Yet we are tipping the balance too far in the direction to catch these four people in the last three elections. One has to question whether the balance is being struck. For the first nations people in particular, those of lower income, those with greater mobility who are moving between houses, and who do not own their houses, it seems that we have gone out of bounds. 
The NDP proposed what we thought were reasonable amendments based on witness testimony and we were consistently voted down 11 to 1. We must reconsider this bill. We must establish something that strikes a better balance, more fairness, and allows first nations people, people of lower income, people who traditionally have not voted to be part of the voting system, so they can influence our decisions here and make for a better country.
[Interjection]
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Royal Galipeau): It being 1:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on the order paper.
When Bill C-31 returns to the House, the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley will have two minutes left for his speech and also five minutes of questions and comments.

Private Members' Business
Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act[Stage Direction]
The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-288, An Act to ensure Canada meets its global climate change obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, as reported (with amendment) from the committee.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Royal Galipeau): There are three motions in amendment standing on the notice paper for the report stage of Bill C-288. Motions Nos. 1 to 3 will be grouped for debate and voted upon according to the voting pattern available at the table.
I will now put Motions Nos. 1 through 3 to the House.
Pablo Rodriguez:  moved:
 Motion No. 1 
 That Bill C-288, in Clause 5, be amended by replacing, in the English version, line 11 on page 4 with the following: 
 “(iii.1) a just” 
 Motion No. 2 
 That Bill C-288, in Clause 10, be amended 
 (a) by replacing, in the French version, line 30 on page 8 with the following: 
 “(i) sur la probabilité que chacun des règle-” 
 (b) by replacing, in the French version, line 34 on page 8 with the following: 
 “(ii) sur la probabilité que l'ensemble des” 
 (c) by replacing, in the French version, line 39 on page 8 with the following: 
 “(iii) sur toute autre question qu'elle estime” 
 Motion No. 3 
 That Bill C-288, in Clause 10, be amended by replacing, in the French version, lines 4 and 5 on page 9 with the following: 
 “de la Chambre des communes, lesquels les déposent devant leur chambre respective” 

[Interjection]
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Royal Galipeau): Earlier today, the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons raised a point of order with respect to some provisions of the bill now before the House.
A number of other members have also made submissions. The Speaker has taken the matter under advisement and will be coming back to the House with a comprehensive ruling. In the meantime, debate may proceed.
The hon. member for Honoré-Mercier.
[Interjection]
Pablo Rodriguez: Mr. Speaker, first, allow me to say how pleased I am to have the opportunity to join in the debate on this important bill. Allow me also to thank my seconder, the hon. member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, and all those who worked directly or indirectly on this important bill.
I have said from the start that this bill is about the future. Its purpose is to take concrete action immediately, action to improve the living conditions of future generations.
This bill is necessary for one simple reason: because the Conservatives refuse to take such action.
First they renounced Kyoto and then they introduced a bill on clean air, which clearly reflected their unspoken intentions to give up on combating climate change without even having the courage to try.
The government's bill, criticized by all the opposition parties, scientists, environmental groups and even by the media, did not contain and still does not contain a short-term schedule. There are no reduction targets for the short term. There is nothing in the bill. It includes no measure that would allow us to achieve our Kyoto objectives.
Seeing that Canadians are furious with the way the government has managed the environment and with government incompetence, especially with regard to climate change, the Prime Minister decided to fire his environment minister and tried to shine up his image on the environment. Canadians are no fools. They know that the government does not believe in what it is doing.
Canadians are not going to believe the Conservatives just because the Prime Minister appointed a new Minister of the Environment, or because the Minister of the Environment came in wearing a green tie the day Parliament resumed sitting or because they have decided to recycle old Liberal programs. Canadians will not believe them.
The Conservatives make a show of taking an interest in the environment, but they actually could not care less about it. They continue to reject Kyoto, and they do not comply with international law. They could not care less about what Canadians want.
When a government flouts international law and what its own citizens want, and when it does not shoulder its responsibilities in the face of one of the biggest challenges to our planet, Parliament has the ability and the moral duty to force the government to do so.
Over the last few weeks we have heard a lot of rhetoric in the House about climate change and the environment. I would like to take this opportunity to remind members and Canadians of what is really at stake here.
Earlier today—and my colleagues are no doubt aware of this—the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its latest report on the science of climate change. I would remind this House that this panel's mandate is to advise governments around the world on the scientific and economic aspects of climate change, as well as its impacts.
This report states unequivocally what we already know, at least on this side of the House: climate change is one of the main challenges, if not the main challenge, facing humanity, not only because of how it affects the environment, but also because of how it affects health, public health, food safety, quality of life and economic prosperity. This report clearly shows that atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are at their highest levels in 650,000 years. This is bad news for the Conservative government, but it is true. The government will have to face facts.
By the way, if ever there was a plane ticket worth buying, it was the one that took the Minister of the Environment to Paris so that he could finally grasp that climate change is caused by human activity. The money that went for his plane ticket yesterday was money well spent.
The report also indicates that average Arctic temperatures are increasing at almost twice the global average rate. Scientists have also discovered that Arctic sea ice is melting faster than their models—which were already quite alarming—predicted. This indicates something we already knew: greenhouse gas concentrations are rising rapidly. Without a considerable reduction in the pollution caused by these gases, the world is headed for a climate-related catastrophe.
If we do not act together on a global scale, if countries fail to agree on ways to dramatically lower greenhouse gas emissions, the planet's average temperature could rise by at least two degrees centigrade, which would be catastrophic.
Let us look at what we can do. We could try to be more positive, more optimistic; we could try to work together to make a difference. For example, we could heat our homes with renewable energy, sell our state-of-the-art green technology around the world and protect the natural heritage Canadians hold so dear. The purpose of this bill is to get us working together, to get us doing something tangible and positive for the future.
We must ensure that Canada chooses the right path for the good of our children and grandchildren, but also for our own good. We know, we are perfectly aware—and Canadians are too—that climate change is real. We can already see its effects. The Kyoto protocol is the tool the international community is using to begin fighting climate change. It may not be perfect, but at least it is getting over 160 countries involved and calling on their ingenuity and good intentions to fight climate change. 
Canada ratified the Kyoto protocol after a majority vote in the House. It came into effect in 2005 and now it is international law. However, one of the Conservative government's first acts in office was to walk away from Kyoto. The Prime Minister said that Canada's Kyoto target was too tough, so he decided to abandon the target without even trying to meet it. That is a fact. A few green photo ops with his brand new environment minister  will not change that.
The truth is that the Conservative government has embarrassed Canada at every international Kyoto meeting since taking office. That is the truth.
Why is the Kyoto protocol important? It is because no country can fight climate change alone. The pollution that is causing global warming is a worldwide phenomenon that affects each and every country. From a climate perspective, it matters little whether that pollution comes from Toronto or Nairobi.
Canada will not be able to avoid the consequences that I mentioned earlier, unless it agrees to cooperate with the rest of the planet, which it refuses to do. The only way to work together is through the Kyoto protocol.
My bill, namely Bill C-288, will ensure that Canada fulfills its Kyoto commitments. The protocol requires the government to achieve its objectives and to implement this plan through real environmental regulations.
The government can choose the means that it wants, and it can spend money or not. It can do it without spending any money, and it is very aware of that. That is the government's prerogative. Its bill provides options, and it is up to the government alone to choose which ones it wants to implement. The government alone will decide whether or not to spend money.
I will conclude with a message of hope, because we, on this side of the House, are optimistic. We believe in the future, and we want to work together. Bill C-288 reflects our hope that Canada will choose the right path, while listening to climate experts, playing a leadership role with the international community and transforming its economy to meet the challenges of the 21st century. 
In fact, this is what all the polls are saying. Canadians across the country want to work together to act and do something about climate change. It is still time to follow that path, but we must act quickly, because the Kyoto target date is very close. Scientists are saying that we only have about 10 years left before all the damage caused to climate by humans' actions becomes irreversible.
I am urging all members of all parties to show courage and boldness so that, together, we can meet this challenge. Let us stand in solidarity with the rest of the world in the fight against climate change, through the Kyoto protocol. Let us work together for our future. More importantly, let us work together for the future of our children and grandchildren.
Mark Warawa: Mr. Speaker, we are here today to debate the amended version of Bill C-288, and I wonder, where has the member been for the last 10 years? Unfortunately, the Liberals were strangely silent and inactive on the environment file, so I am glad they have finally woken up.
The fundamental premise of this bill is that Canada should simply push harder and make it our mission to meet Canada's emission reduction targets under the Kyoto protocol. This does sound good, but unfortunately, when our government took office a year ago, we found out that Canada was 35% above the Kyoto targets with only two years remaining before we would need to start meeting those targets. 
We found out that the previous Liberal government had left us with an environmental mess. We are now finding out as Canadians and as a--
[Interjection]
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Royal Galipeau): Order, please. I have recognized the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment. I understand that there are other private conversations that might be interesting to some. I invite members to have those conversations in their respective lobbies. Meanwhile, the test is that I can hear the hon. parliamentary secretary. I will not interrupt again unless I do not hear him, but I need to hear him. Thank you.
[Interjection]
Mark Warawa: Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, when we took power, we found out that the previous Liberal government had left us with an environmental mess, and we are now all finding out the true and real costs of 13 years of Liberal inaction on the environment. 
The previous Liberal government entered into the Kyoto protocol wanting to look like it cared about the environment. Unfortunately, it did not keep its promises. Instead of emissions going down, they went up 35% above that Kyoto target. That is why we are in the situation that we are in Canada today.
The commissioner of the environment said in her report to Parliament, “There is a gap between what the government”--the then Liberal government--“said it would do and what it is actually doing”. I like to call that gap the Dion gap. This is another quote--
[Interjection]
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Royal Galipeau): I had intended not to interrupt the hon. member, but members know we are not supposed to name members by their first names or their surnames, only by their titles or the names of their ridings.
[Interjection]
Mark Warawa: Mr. Speaker, the environment commissioner also said that “good intentions are not good enough”. She went on to say:
 When it comes to protecting the environment, bold announcements are made and then often forgotten as soon as the confetti hits the ground. The federal [Liberal] government seems to have trouble crossing the finish line. 
Before I continue, I would like to reiterate what the Minister of the Environment said yesterday during his speech, which is that our government acknowledges that climate change is taking place and that it is a serious issue facing the world today.
 Canadians have also told us that they are extremely concerned about climate change. That is why this government is taking concrete action so that Canadians can see clear results for the environment and for their health.
This government also recognizes that the Kyoto protocol is a global effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions around the world and here in Canada. Unfortunately, the Liberals did not get the job done.
The environment commissioner also went on to condemn the previous government, saying:
 Even if the measures contained in the previous government's 2005 plan had been fully implemented, it is difficult to say whether the projected emissions reductions would have been enough to meet our Kyoto obligations. 
The Leader of the Opposition admitted that his plan was inadequate. He said, “I would agree with you that it wasn't enough”.
 Canadians do not want fancy talk and pretentious rhetoric. They want real leadership and a sensible, practical plan for taking action now.
 Canadians do not want unrealistic commitments that we cannot achieve. They want to see cleaner air, cleaner water and a healthy environment. 
Canadians do not want billions of their hard-earned tax dollars sent to buy foreign hot air credits in a vain attempt for optics to meet Kyoto targets. They want their tax dollars spent on getting Canada on the right track so that we can make real progress in addressing our greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions for the long term.
Climate change is a serious environmental problem that needs immediate attention. The previous government decision to do nothing over the last decade was a serious mistake. Our government will do better.
Bill C-288 is a mistake. It will not solve the problems that the Liberals left behind. Our government will do better through some of the toughest legislation ever tabled in the House on greenhouse gases and air pollution: Bill C-30, Canada's clean air act.
 We need a new approach, an approach that will get concrete results which will protect the health of Canadians and the environment, an approach that is achievable, affordable and practical.
We are the first government in the history of Canada to say that we are going to start regulating industries for both greenhouse gases and air quality in Canada. We have made a very good start and we are going to do more. 
Canada's clean air act will enhance our capacity to address the concerns of Canadians and strengthen the government's ability to take a coordinated approach to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gases.
The clean air regulatory agenda will regulate both the greenhouse gases and the air pollutants from all industrial sectors and transportation in the short, the medium and the long term. Our short term targets for greenhouse gas reductions will be more aggressive than those proposed by the previous Liberal government. Our short term targets for air pollutants will be among the most aggressive in the world.
 We are regulating the energy efficiency of 20 currently unregulated products, such as commercial clothes dryers and commercial boilers. We are tightening requirements for 10 other products, such as residential dishwashers and dehumidifiers.
 We are also providing $1.5 billion for incentives for projects to generate clean energy from renewable sources such as wind, biomass, solar, tidal, and geothermal.
 We are providing $300 million to help Canadians make their homes and business more energy efficient.
 We are providing $230 million to accelerate the development of clean energy technology, including CO2 sequestration and storage, clean oil, clean coal, clean oil sands, renewable energy, advanced vehicles, next generation nuclear, and bioenergy.
We have provided Canadians with tax credits of 15.5% on public transit passes, which will offset the greenhouse gas emissions of about 56,000 cars. 
We have provided $1.3 billion to the provinces and territories for urban transit infrastructure improvements.
 We are regulating a 5% average renewable fuel content in Canadian gasoline and a 2% average renewable fuel content in diesel fuel and heating oil. We have provided $345 million to bolster farmer participation in the production of biofuels.
This is the kind of leadership needed to achieve affordable and practical action. That is what Canadians want. 
The Liberal plan was to buy hot air credits and then have inaction. Canadians now know that it did not work and it will not work.
 Canadians want action on the environment and that is what they are getting. That is what we will continue doing. We are getting the job done.
Mr. Bernard Bigras (Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased today to discuss Bill C-288, which proposes that Canada adopt the Kyoto protocol. What better time to discuss this bill than the day the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change releases its fourth report on climate change. 
Today, this report has made it clear that climate change is happening faster than expected. The 2001 report forecasted temperature increases ranging from 1oC to 1.4oC, with 5.8oC being the extreme.
Today, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change told us that global temperatures could rise as much as 6.4oC.
Another important fact in the report is that Canada and Quebec could be facing even more dramatic temperature increases in the next few years. 
Experts tell us that temperature increases could be 3% to 4% greater than they currently are in northern Quebec and that we could experience increases exceeding 10oC within years. Danger is at our doorstep. The situation is alarming. This is an emergency.
Remember that an eminent former economist with the World Bank, Mr. Stern, had predicted that a 5oC temperature increase was a critical threshold beyond which significant economic impacts would be seen around the world.
A few minutes ago, I listened to the Minister of the Environment say he was surprised by the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. You really would have to be in another world not to have predicted accelerated climate change and the findings in the IPCC's fourth report.
On this side of the House, we are not surprised at the minister's surprise, because this government has denied the fact of climate change for so many years. With climate change accelerating, the government needs to bring forward a plan to implement the Kyoto protocol in Canada sooner. Of course, the government will say that its solution to climate change is Bill C-30, the clean air act.
When we look at this bill in detail, the first thing we notice is that it does not include the Kyoto targets, which many of us feel are the first step in the fight against climate change. The government is proposing a long-term strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60% by 2050. This is not enough.
In the coming weeks, could the government table a plan based on the most recent scientific data, which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tabled today, and, when it comes to combating climate change, stop applying a policy from the stone age, which always suggests that to them these climate changes do not seem to be having an impact and are simply a naturally occurring phenomenon?
The report has been validated with 90% scientific certitude. The links between climate change and human activity have now been proven, and this threshold of certitude is currently at 90% in the report that was tabled.
Therefore we must move forward with a bill, such as Bill C-288, which reaffirms the importance of respecting the targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and proposing measures for the short, medium and long terms in order to combat climate change. 
Furthermore, in this bill we have proposed a new approach that, in our opinion, will maximize every dollar invested in combating climate change, in order to ensure that we reduce greenhouse gases as much as possible.
Until now, the approach proposed by the federal government has been a sectoral approach that sets reduction objectives per industrial sector. This voluntary approach has not produced the expected results. Increases of over 27% in greenhouse gas emissions were observed compared to 1990 levels. That is the federal government's record, including the current government and the previous government. This has lost Canada its role as leader on the world stage.
What is the approach being proposed today by the Bloc? It is a territorial approach much like the one used in Europe, which has allowed that continent to plan and present to the world an environmental record that will see it achieving its Kyoto targets more quickly than anything Canada has proposed to date.
How did they achieve these results? By negotiating an 8% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions among the 15 countries which, at the time, were members of the European Union—now consisting of more than 25 countries, by setting a single negotiated target and assigning different targets to individual EU members.
How were these different targets established? They were established on the basis of climate, for example. Can we agree that the climate is not the same everywhere in Canada? Can we recognize that the Canadian economic structure is not the same across the country? In the western provinces the economic base is oil and in Ontario it is the automobile industry. We know that the federal government has done everything it could to consolidate the automobile industry in Ontario. In Quebec, manufacturing is the economic base and for years has been overlooked by the federal government. The situation varies depending on where we live.
The Quebec industrial sector, as a whole, has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions in Quebec by 7%. Imposing an across-the-board reduction for greenhouse gas emissions for all industrial sectors in Canada would penalize Quebec industry, which has already made an effort by changing its industrial processes or implementing action plans in various sectors and businesses. Quebec is prepared to sign an agreement with the federal government regarding a target of a 6% reduction within its borders. What we are saying here today is that Quebec must be given the opportunity to implement its own policy to address climate change. Why? Because in Quebec, further efforts are not needed in the industrial sector; efforts are needed in the transportation sector. This how true decentralization could be used to make the most of every dollar invested in the fight against climate change, in order to reduce greenhouse gases as much as possible. 
What we are asking for is simply a more effective approach. Personally, I do not believe that a single, coast-to-coast plan to combat climate change adopted in Ottawa is the way to make the most of every dollar invested. Various realities must be taken into consideration. In Canada, a common approach can be adopted concerning the targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. We must ensure that the provinces respect their commitments. If necessary, a regulatory system could be introduced, but the provinces must be allowed to implement their own policies. That is the only way to maximize the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in relation to every dollar invested. 
Nathan Cullen: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to enter into the debate. It seems to be, and I hope it is not the first and only, a week of talking about the environment. 
It gives me particular pleasure because the issue has been one on which I do not think Parliament has been seized with the proper energy over the last number of years, certainly over the last number of decades. While the debate today is somewhat representative of where we need not to be on this issue, Canadians have heard the Liberals time and again claiming that the Conservative Party members do not believe in climate change or that they are climate change skeptics. While I do not necessarily doubt the allegation, the fact is that they need to respond.
I am not sure any party in this place has a choice any more. We cannot stand on the side of the biggest polluters or on the side of those who wish to continue to be irresponsible in their decisions. We must stand on the side of responsible governance.
We saw the report out of Paris today that was made by 1,200 leading scientists, more than 2,300 contributors of the best and brightest our world has to offer and more than 113 countries. For those of us who have been involved in the United Nations process, we know that getting language into a document can be onerous because it needs to be done by consensus. When we have all these different views and countries represented with their own narrow national interest, it is hard to establish strong language. However, even under those conditions, the language that came out of the United Nations today compels every one of us to work within our parties, to work within our constituencies and to work with all the groups and businesses on this issue for a common cause, which is the reduction of the amount of pollution that is produced by our economy.
We have had many witnesses. For more than two and a half years the former environment committee heard witnesses and now the present environment committee, which was looking at Bill C-288 and is now looking at Bill C-30, will hear more witnesses. Something that has been consistently brought to the attention of members of Parliament is that Kyoto is not so much an environmental protocol as it is an economic one. It goes to the very heart of the decisions that are made about our economy and about the way that certain costs are captured.
The costs for pollution have never been properly captured in this country. That has been true for many other nations as well but they have been moving ahead of us, particularly on the European front but other nations as well, to capture the actual costs of production, one of those costs being how much pollution is emitted into the air.
If anyone remains doubtful of the science or doubtful of the impacts I would gladly invite them for a tour of my riding in northwestern British Columbia where the foresters have come to me and said that they are witnessing the impacts of climate change. The forestry experts have said that the changes they have seen in their weather are causing an infestation of parasites that they have never see the likes of before. They are losing virtually every pine tree in the province and it is now sweeping over the Rockies into Alberta into the boreal forest. The consequences are serious.
We have also heard in the debate today, which I am not sure is helpful, the Conservatives disclaiming the record of the Liberals. Something calls to my mind when I look at Bill C-288. Where was this bill in 1998 and where was it in 2000? Where was the demand for an accountable plan? I know the hon. member was not here but his party was in power.
This is important to point out because timing is important when we talk about the adjustments we need in our economy. I had an excellent meeting with a group of mining executives in the last Parliament. They were upset and frustrated with the government at the time on the question of energy. They were smelting a great deal of ore and it is very energy intensive. 
They watched us go through the Kyoto debate, sign on in 1988 and ratify later on. They saw this coming, because they heard from the government that this was coming, and they started to make some changes to the way they used energy and the way that they were polluting. They have been reducing that pollution and their energy uses, which was mostly natural gas in their case, and yet they were not getting any credit for it. There was no level playing field created because the government kept waiting and waiting.
Meanwhile, their competitors in the industry were allowed to continue business as usual. They were not making those types of investments. They became frustrated, and rightly so. The timing of the thing, the fairness and the certainty that businesses have been requiring for so long is critical for moving across our economy.
Despite all the failures of the previous government to set a fair and level playing field for all those competing, on their way out I asked the Liberals one last question: “By the way, how is it going? How is business?” They said, “It is great. Natural gas prices went through the roof in the last couple of years. We used far less than our competitors and we are beating the pants off some of them”, and then they walked out.
At some point we need to debate the environment versus the economy. I often hear some of my colleagues on the benches to my left ask what we have against Alberta and what we have against jobs. That type of thinking needs to end. At some point, with the water crisis that we had in Alberta and when the mayor of Fort McMurray and her council pass a unanimous resolution begging, pleading with the provincial and federal governments to put a halt to any new projects in their area, one begins to question the economy versus the environment debate and see that it is not true. 
We see the IPCC report today, the UN's report. We are no longer debating if the seas are rising, we are debating how much. We are no longer debating if the earth is in fact warming, we are debating how much.
An important thing for Canadians to realize, when they look at the numbers and the estimates go from a little less than two degrees to potentially as much as six degrees average temperatures, is that the average temperature for the entire globe is felt most in the northern hemisphere. The further north one goes the more intense those degrees move and the greater they are. For the people who live in the far north and who depend on the resources for resource extraction, we have seen the number of permafrost days and ice road days go down. Mining companies are closing up shop for longer and longer periods of time. 
We need to understand and appreciate that this is a battle we must all be seized with. We need to realize that to continue this ping-pong debate back and forth in question period and in debates like this between who is doing worse on the environment between the Conservatives and Liberals, I do not think Canadians are all that interested, to be frank. I do not think Canadians are as interested anymore in hearing that the Liberal record for 13 years led to 30% above, which is true, or that the Conservatives are not seized with the issue of the environment, which is true.
 I encourage my colleague who is introducing this bill to hand over some of the amendments that exist in his private member's bill and we can stuff them in, or cram them in or force them into the government's bill. I constantly hear some opposition members at the committee and here in the House say that they want to hear more about the government's plans before they can make decisions about the government's bill. My goodness, courage my friends. The opposition parties have a majority on the committee, as they do in this place, and we should tell the government what we want to do. We should not be waiting for government plans or for this hopeful Kyoto strategy that may or may not come from the government. I am not holding my breath. I waited a long time for the previous government to do it, and I kept waiting and waiting. One gets bored of waiting and just wants to make the changes and do the things that we know are right, in particular, in the debate around Kyoto and whether we are staying in.
Kyoto is a contract that we have with the international community. We are in this protocol. Unless the government steps forward and says that it is tearing it up, we are in this protocol and we must honour our commitments. I know the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment and the Prime Minister have not said that we are tearing it up. However, if the government is not suggesting that we step out of it, then we are in, and, if we are in, there are penalties that are incurred for missing the targets. That is how it was written.
The world community thought this was so serious that we could not just have another international meeting, have more politicians standing up at more microphones making more pronouncements and yet continuing down a disastrous path when it came to pollution and to climate change. Because they knew this was not an option, the leaders of the day, who signed on to this agreement and drafted this, made sure there were penalties. They are the penalties we abide by.
The debate over the science of climate change is over. The debate over whether Canada is in this protocol must be over. The only debate that now exists is on the measures we as parliamentarians together need to take to change course in this country to once again be proud of our international reputation, particularly when it comes to the environment. We absolutely owe it to ourselves, to the constituents who sent us here and to future generations.
Ruby Dhalla: Mr. Speaker, climate change is the single most pressing ecological threat facing our country and our planet. I am here today on behalf of my constituents of Brampton—Springdale, the children, the youth, the seniors and families who are concerned about global warming and climate change. They are concerned about having an action plan for climate change.
The fight against climate change is one about which all Canadians are concerned, Canadians from all socio-economic backgrounds, Canadians from all cultural groups, Canadians from every walk of life, because environmental sustainability, economic prosperity and social justice are three pillars that are paramount to every Canadian family. This is why I stand in the House today to lend my full support for Bill C-288, An Act to ensure Canada meets its global climate change obligations under the Kyoto Protocol.
 We have seen not only in the last decade but in the last few months that climate change does exist. The threat of climate change is real and it is here. The levels of greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are now rising faster than ever. This has led to record increases in temperature over the 20th century.
We must take action now to ensure energy efficiency of our economy and our productivity. It is an issue of quality of life of our citizens. As global citizens we have a responsibility to our fellow citizens throughout the world to take action and to provide leadership as a country. We have a responsibility to work with the international community to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and clean up our global environment. What we need is leadership and we need a plan of action.
I know that the Liberal Party and Canadians across the country all agree that we have a responsibility to our children and grandchildren to ensure that we act now. We must ensure that we build a healthy and sustainable environment in which every citizen throughout the world has the highest quality of life possible.
On the environment file, the Conservative government has truly made a mockery of Canada's environmental stewardship. Canadians have a Prime Minister who has never really believed in the science of climate change. I am sure over the past few weeks many Canadians have read the letter written by the Prime Minister in 2002 in which he stated:
 “battle of Kyoto“--our campaign to block the job-killing, economy-destroying Kyoto Accord. 
Here is another quote from the letter:
 It's based on tentative and contradictory scientific evidence-- 
And yet another quote:
 THERE ARE NO CANADIAN WINNERS UNDER THE KYOTO ACCORD....It will take an army of Canadians to beat Kyoto. 
The letter goes on and on. However, we have noticed that in the past few months the Prime Minister and the Conservative government have suddenly decided to go green, because the polls have shown that the environment is one of the top priorities of Canadians. But a leopard can never truly change its spots. The fact of the matter is that the government has embarrassed us at the international level and damaged Canada's reputation when it comes to the environment.
We have taken a look at some of the Conservatives' action plan initiatives. They have refused to honour the $538 million agreement that was struck between the governments of Canada and Ontario to shut down coal fired production plants. They have refused to honour their commitments of the partnership fund to fund climate change programs that were run by provinces and municipalities, a loss of $328 million to Quebec for its Kyoto plan. They have gutted 92% of the funding for climate change. They have shut down four successful climate change programs in Canada.
It has been a year and the Conservative government has not gotten the job done.
Mr. Pierre Poilievre:  You didn't get it done.
Ruby Dhalla:  Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government has spent $300 million on transit pass rebates, a program that experts say will not produce results or reduce the number of cars on the road. The fact of the matter is--
[Interjection]
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Royal Galipeau): Order, please. I would like to advise the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board that he is next on the order. He will get his turn to speak. In the meantime, I am listening to the hon. member for Brampton—Springdale and I would appreciate it if I could listen to her without interruption.
[Interjection]
Ruby Dhalla: Mr. Speaker, with the amount of time and effort that goes into writing speeches, I appreciate that you are listening along with many other Canadians.
The fact is the Conservatives have never truly believed in the science of climate change and they have never believed in Kyoto. They have embarrassed our reputation time and time again, not only nationally but at the international level as well. 
I want to take a look back at when the Liberals were in government and talk about some of the initiatives that were undertaken by it.
On February 23, 2005, one week after Kyoto became international law, the Liberal government released Canada's greenest budget ever. In total, the budget provided almost $5 billion over five years to green Canada's economy, to clean our land, our air and our water. It included measures to address such things as climate change, increasing renewable energy production, such as wind and small hydro, to remediate toxic sites and to improve public infrastructure.
On April 13, 2005, $4 billion was invested in the climate change plan that detailed sector by sector greenhouse gas reduction targets and our plans to meet them.
On September 3, 2005, the Liberal government once again proposed the addition of six greenhouse gases to be added to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which would have provided the federal government with the legal authority to take quick action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and also aiding in the establishment of mandatory greenhouse gas emission reduction targets.
In December 2005, and I am sure that many Canadians watching today will also remember this, that we proudly hosted, in Montreal, the historic United Nations conference on climate change. It was under Canada's leadership that this conference brought together 180 countries to create Montreal's action plan, a clear road map to the world's future approach to cooperation on climate change. This initiative outlined energy efficiency and innovations in clean technology to promote economic growth without increasing polluting emissions and also launched a dialogue on long term cooperative action on climate change.
In 2006 a 10 year $1 billion comprehensive four part strategy was announced to clean up problematic areas such as the St. Lawrence River Basin and the Great Lakes.
It is evident that the Conservatives in the last year have turned their backs on the science of climate change. They have turned their backs on global warming. They have not done the job. As I think has been said before in the House today, the issue of climate change, the issue of the environment and the issue of global warming requires cooperation. It requires collaboration between all parliamentarians and all parties in the House. It also requires cooperation and collaboration with the international community. 
As a country, we traditionally have had respect because we have provided leadership when it comes to addressing the issue of climate change. As parliamentarians, that is why we support the bill being brought forward today. It will ensure, once again, that Canada will provide that leadership and have the respect needed to ensure we can meet our international obligations to the Kyoto protocol.
Having travelled and spoken to many Canadians across the country, it is clearly evident that Canadians want action. Canadians need action. As parliamentarians, we must ensure that we get the job done. Our party has a leader who is passionate, who is committed and who has the conviction to ensure that we meet our international obligations to the Kyoto protocol.
Pierre Poilievre: Mr. Speaker, the member speaks of the Liberal leader's great new found passion for the subject of climate change, but, frankly, the planet does not care about his platitudes. The planet does not care about his $40 million conferences. The planet does not care if he wears a green scarf or names his dog after the Japanese city of Kyoto. The planet cares what real action we take to confront the problems before us.
Today we have more posturing. We have Liberal members standing in the House and puffing up like blowfish to talk about how much they now care about the environment. The reality is they had the chance and they did not get the job done. In their own words, 13 years of talk, 13 years of inaction. 
Canadians will not be fooled. The Liberals, from the period that the Kyoto accord was accepted in the late 1990s until the time when they left office, took no effective action. In fact, greenhouse gases were skyrocketing at the fastest rate in Canadian history at the very moment they left office, after over a year of oversight by the then minister of the environment, who is now the leader of the Liberal Party.
Let us reflect on the environment commissioner's report, someone the Liberals themselves have called a great advocate on the environment. Let us take a look from 1998 through 2006.
The 1998 reports states:
 —the federal government is failing to meet its policy commitments. 
The 1999 report states:
 Federal departments are divided on the degree and significance of risks posed by some individual toxic substances, the interpretation and application of legislation and the nature of their respective roles and authorities. This has led to indecision, inaction and strained relations among departments. 
The 2000 reports states:
 —persistent problems with the federal government's management of key issues like climate change, toxic substances and biodiversity....As a result, commitments made to Canadians were not being met. 
The 2001 report states:
 The continued upward trend in Canada's emissions demonstrates that the government has not transformed its promises into results. 
Again, the Liberals did not get the job done.
 The 2002 report states the federal government's “sustainable development deficit continues to grow”.
The 2003 report states:
 There is a gap between what the government said it would do and what it is actually doing. 
Good intentions are not enough.
The 2005 report states:
 When it comes to protecting the environment, bold announcements are made and then often forgotten as soon as the confetti hits the ground. The federal government seems to have trouble crossing the finish line. 
I noticed some amusement, even from our friends on the Liberal side, at the line “bold announcements are made and then often forgotten as soon as the confetti hits the ground”. I think the commissioner was bang on, on this point. Then she said, “The federal government”, referring to the Liberal government, “seems to have trouble crossing the finish line”. Forget the finish line. When this 15 year marathon was sounded, when the pistol was fired, the Liberals started sprinting in the opposite direction. Now we have to turn that direction around and come all the way back and attempt to meet these spectacularly demanding targets that were signed on to before.
No wonder Canadians booted the Liberals from office not so long ago. Now that they are in opposition, what are they doing? The Liberal leader has appointed a Kyoto skeptic as the Liberal critic on the environment. The member for Ottawa South is in fact a Kyoto skeptic and I will prove that today.
During the nine years that the member was the president of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, he allowed greenhouse gases to skyrocket. He said that when Canadians “see the costs of Kyoto, they are going to scream”. He said that the Kyoto accord would cost $40 billion a year. Those were the words of the Liberal member for Ottawa South, the high priest of hypocrisy on the environment. He said it would cost $40 billion a year to implement Kyoto and that when Canadians learned of these costs they would scream. Those were the words of the Liberal critic for the environment.
During the Liberal years, he wrote:
 Canada has the second-highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions in the world. If we ratify the Kyoto Protocol, we will have to reduce them by 6 per cent below 1990 levels. That means reducing our emissions by 26 per cent from the current levels, because we are emitting so much more now than we were in 1990. 
That is what he said of his own government's record. That is the Kyoto skeptic that the leader of the Liberal Party has chosen to speak up on the issue of the environment. I notice that he has not been speaking much lately. In fact, he has been silenced.
We are taking real action on this side of the House. We have given incentives to put more solar power, wind power, wave power and biodiesel into the energy component of our economy.
 We are supporting the creation of more clean fuels such as ethanol. We are working toward using our agricultural sector as a new source of clean energy and at the same time creating new markets for our farmers.
These are real actions that will be met in conjunction with the clean air act and will lead us to achieve, in the long run, real reductions in both smog and greenhouse gas emissions. These are the kinds of real actions that the planet is asking from us. The planet is not demanding more $40 million conferences. 
Canadians are asking the House of Commons to rally around the passage of the clean air act, to get something done, to achieve the job, to get real results, and that is what I am proud to be part of. That is why I am proud to be part of this government.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Royal Galipeau):  The time provided for the consideration of private members' business has now expired, and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the order paper.
When Bill C-288 returns for debate, there will be two and a half minutes left for the hon. parliamentary secretary. 
It being 2:30 p.m., the House stands adjourned until Monday at 11 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).
(The House adjourned at 2:30 p.m.)