That's great. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
This motion, which I gave notice of, I'd now like to table and move:
That the Committee present a report to the House of Commons recommending that Bill C-23, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other Acts and to make consequential amendments to certain Acts, be withdrawn.
The idea behind this is that the official opposition would like us to start fresh, albeit benefiting from the process that's occurred to date, which has had all kinds of learning elements in it. This is where we probably should have started with the bill in the House, given the nature of the Canada Elections Act, where much more extensive preparation, engagement with knowledgeable stakeholders from commissioners of Canada elections to chief electoral officers, and so on, should have occurred, not to mention a much more collegial, extensive process with the other parties in Parliament.
The government has backed down on a number of very important areas that have been resisted by the official opposition, by civil society, and I do suspect by Conservative MPs. With the amendments the government's been forced to agree to, this bill will be better than Bill C-23, that is, the unfair elections act, as tabled by the minister, but it will be still much worse than leaving the current Canada Elections Act in place.
An hon. member: Hear, hear!
Mr. Craig Scott: Make no mistake, Mr. Chair, democratic resistance did prevail in major ways over the last two months. Frankly, and I'm not speaking to my colleagues across the way who are sitting as colleague MPs—they are not in cabinet, they are not the minister—would the government have announced that it was doing the about-face in several areas that it announced on Friday without the tenacious, all-hands-on-deck opposition coming from the NDP and from the leader of the official opposition? Would it have done so without an amazing outpouring of civil society protest? Would it have done so without scholars and editorial boards speaking out with reasoned arguments that endorsed the NDP's arguments in the House, and in our cross-country hearings that this committee would not endorse, that we had to do on our own, and without over 70 witnesses coming almost to a person to take this bill apart bit by bit?
Frankly, and here I do want to thank my colleagues, many of whom remain nameless even to me, and without Conservative MPs' responding to the effort started by the official opposition that created so much pressure, plus the persuasive efforts with MPs across the way.... Some of it went on throughout the testimony, and I'm not saying that this was not listened to by my colleagues, some of it was, but many other backbenchers weighed in. I know this. Without all this, there's no way the government would have backed down on a single item, I am convinced, given their “our way or the highway” approach.
We have had 10 hours of amendment discussion, clause-by-clause consideration, and I'd like to report, in case nobody noticed, that not a single opposition amendment, of many dozens, has been accepted to this point.
An hon. member: Shame.
Mr. Craig Scott: The “our way or the highway” has continued. For that reason alone, there is absolutely no chance of this bill being fixed anywhere near what would be needed for anybody, speaking for the official opposition, to support it. We'll get to the end of the process with many serious flaws. Voter information cards are still banned. The commissioner's power to seek a judicial order to compel testimony will not be permitted. The commissioner will have been moved to the Director of Public Prosecutions, a completely unnecessary move that also undermines the commissioner's capacity to investigate and the role he plays in the compliance structure of Elections Canada. The Chief Electoral Officer will have no access to campaign receipts from national parties. All public education and information programs will remain banned except for schools. Treasury Board will have a say on the temporary specialists, researchers, etc., that the Chief Electoral Officer can hire.
We tried. We moved to go into committee after first reading for everybody to be able to look at this bill fresh from the start. That was declined. So we have no choice but to withdraw and start afresh. With that, I move this motion to withdraw.
An hon. member: Kill the bill.