“This bill is meant to deal with immediate threats to our election system. Changing how political parties get money does not belong in this bill, but we could look at it in the future.”

“Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my dear friend, the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, for her question. I would simply say that my view of this piece of legislation is that it is intended to deal with imminent threats and challenges facing Canada’s electoral system. I do not feel at this time that the suggestion by my hon. colleague with regard to the way in which parties are financed would fall under the scope of this piece of legislation but, perhaps, under a future piece of legislation. In this particular case, I do not feel that it is relevant at this time.”

“I hear my colleague's comments, and I will bring them to the committee.”

“Mr. Speaker, I will take my hon. colleague’s comments on notice and take them to committee.”

“I do not think the public wants public money given to political parties for each vote they get. The member can still bring that idea to the committee. Also, this bill stops voters from signing nomination forms for more than one candidate, and it stops agents from working for more than one candidate in a riding. I want to know if the Bloc supports these two rules.”

“Mr. Speaker, I know a number of Bloc members have raised the whole voting dollar issue and how that could possibly help finance political entities. I do not believe there is any public will for that to take place, but I would encourage the member to bring it up at the standing committee. I would like some clarification. The member talked a lot about the long ballot, and I do not know if it is me or possibly the translation, but I am a little confused. In the legislation, it says that a voter can only sign one nomination form. Then it also indicates that an official agent can only be the official agent for one candidate in that given riding. Does the Bloc support those two measures?”

“The bigger fines in this bill are meant to stop people who want to break the rules. People who follow the rules have nothing to fear. I want the member to explain their concerns about these fines.”

“Mr. Speaker, you have obviously done a great deal of review on the bill. I will give the member an opportunity to elaborate. You talked about penalty increases and some concern with the size of the increases. The size of the increase, I believe, is to prevent bad intention or bad actors. If candidates, official agents or others are acting in good faith, they have no fear of an increase in the size of the penalty. I want to give you an opportunity to elaborate on your thoughts.”

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“I hope we can work together to improve this elections bill in committee. I do not like online voting myself, but I want to hear the member's thoughts on it.”

“Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments that the member put on the record. Ultimately, there is a high sense of collaboration on this legislation. PROC will have a wonderful time going through it, sharing ideas and thoughts. If there are ways the legislation can be approved, hopefully through collaboration, then we will get to see that done. Given the member’s background, and I really enjoyed her comments, I wonder if she could provide her thoughts on virtual voting, which is a little off topic but related. It is something that I think some people are thinking about. I am not a big fan of it, personally, but I would like to see more discussion on the issue of virtual voting, the pros and the cons.”

“I want to know if the member thinks we should add anything else to make this bill stronger.”

“Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member opposite if there is anything else she feels that perhaps we should be including in this bill to strengthen it and if she would like to elaborate on anything she feels we should also include.”

“We want to work together on this elections bill. I want to ask the member about our plan to shorten the ballot. Right now, the bill says a voter can only support one candidate to get on the ballot, and an official agent can only work for one candidate in a riding. Does he want to change those rules?”

“Mr. Speaker, as I indicated to the previous Conservative speaker, it is the government’s intent to work collaboratively on this legislation. The member said it well when he said that the foundation of our democracy is something that we should virtually never, ever take for granted. I was interested in his comments in regard to the long ballot. I thought he articulated them quite well. Does he see any changes required to what is currently in the legislation where we are proposing that a voter can only sign one nomination form for a candidate to be on the ballot, and that one can be an official agent outside of that one constituency, but one can only be an official agent for one candidate in that constituency?”

“I want to stop people from cluttering voting ballots with fake candidates. We should make candidates sign a promise saying they actually plan to run and represent the area.”

“Mr. Speaker, I did, in fact, work with my colleague on the electoral reform committee. I enjoyed working with him on that. I would like to get his opinion on whether we should also be looking at the following, in terms of eliminating the longest ballot. I know that every candidate who wants to present in a federal election has to fill out a nomination paper as a candidate with Elections Canada and make solemn declarations on that form. Could the member provide an opinion on whether one of those declarations should be something along the lines of “I fully intend to represent the citizens in this riding”? The reason why they are using the same auditor is that they are not actually incurring or submitting any expenses, as they have no intention to run. Perhaps a solemn declaration with the actual intent of running is something we could add.”

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