Pierre Poilievre and the Not So Fair Elections Act

Here is just a taste of irony to start things off.

Following the 2011 General Election there were charges of voter fraud in the riding of Etobicoke Centre. What happened was that there were a number of votes challenged because some people had voted outside of their own polling station even though their name was stroked off in their home polling station meaning they may have voted twice. Others had been allowed to vote without showing their voters card or any other ID, and some had been “vouched votes” but the paperwork for these votes were incomplete or in some cases nonexistent.

The Harper Party took the matter to the Supreme Court of Canada, but they weren’t the ones trying to get these votes removed. They were defending these votes.

They argued successfully at the SCC that the removal of these votes which would have turned the seat over to Liberal Borys Wrzesnewskyj that would be an affront to the voters that had supported their winner Ted Opitz.

Fast forward to today and Bill C-23, the Fair Elections Act.

Suddenly the Harper Party has decided that under no circumstances should these “vouched votes” be accepted. If you do not have proper ID, you do not vote.

I’m not sure if this is a flip-flop or just hypocrisy.

Pierre (Skippy) Poilievre says his bill is terrific, that it isn’t based on expert opinions but on common sense. That’s how he can so easily brush aside any criticism from knowledgeable people like Sheila Fraser, Marc Mayrand, and so forth. If you’re not one these ivory tower elites and question this bill you are some lefty nut job and not worthy of the time to refute your case.

Well let’s try some common sense.

If voter fraud caused by vouching was a real issue wouldn’t there have been complaints from across the country about this? Aside from the Etobicoke Centre challenge, I really haven’t heard any complaints about it.

No, but I have heard plenty of complaints from across the country about RoboCalls. Why aren’t they controlled or banned in this bill? Wouldn’t that make sense?

Skippy’s bill wants to let the winners of the elections pick the officials for the next election. I sooo certain they would only pick honourable people and that there would be no favouritism shown at all. That would be like the Chicago Black Hawks getting to pick the refs for the next season because they won the Stanley Cup. How sensible does that sound? Think Chicago would make the finals again the next year?

Bill C-23 looks to constrain the powers of the Chief Electoral Officer and Elections Canada. To hear the Harper Party talk, there is an obvious bias against the Harper Party by these officials.

To tell the truth, the only cases of impropriety that I’ve heard about are with Harper Party candidates. What does common sense say to that?

The Harper Party says elections at the local level are run by amateurs and mistakes will occur, Elections Canada is chasing only their party for these minor offences. Well, maybe, but it’s more likely that these minor offences were dealt with by the other offenders when they arose. Common senses says that mistakes would likely happen about the same amount of time for all the parties, but only one party makes it a habit of not correcting these errors promptly. Or maybe there is only one party that broke the rules?

Skippy complains that Marc Mayrand only wants more power and more money to run Elections Canada. Well it does take years to get anything done through Elections Canada when questions of impropriety arise. Shouldn’t EC be able to get a warrant to compel witnesses to speak? Shouldn’t EC have the people available to investigate allegations and inform the public of these charges and whether they find enough merit in these cases to proceed with a full investigation?

Skippy, if you have issues with EC having the power to actually investigate and take action then maybe YOU have something to hide?

No, Common Sense wants elections determined on who present the best case on why Me and My Party have the best options for Canada, not who can raise the most money.

Common Sense wants a neutral party to oversee elections and to challenge and punish rule breakers.

Common Sense wants the same type of rules that govern income tax to cover elections. If you show campaign expenses, those expenses need to be accompanied by receipts to show how that money was spent. We refund a portion of those expenses, we want accountability.

And Common Sense wants anyone who is a Canadian Citizen and who is of legal age to vote to be able to vote.

We have come a long way from when an MP was selected by a show of hands by men who held property. It took a long time before we allowed women to vote and an even longer time before we allowed the First Nations to vote. These were steps in the right direction.

When I first voted, I simply walked into the polling station, told them who I was and they handed me a ballot. We didn’t have widespread voter fraud then, we don’t have it now. But now I need to provide ID or at least have someone who has valid ID vouch for me. The same routine you’d probably have to do if you take your 18 year old to vote if they don’t have a drivers licence.

For over 100 years we could vote with no ID required. If you are truly worried about voter fraud Skippy, why not put in a rule where I need to stick my finger in the inkwell when my ballot goes into the box? I don’t have an issue with this, it would be a source of pride to show that I have voted.

But I get to choose the finger.

Cheers! BC

In the mean time, since this flawed bill is going to be rushed through the pipes faster than any bill in the history of Canada, if you are concerned that you don’t have enough ID to vote, march your tuchas down to the nearest Provincial (or Territorial) Government office and get your Provincial/Territorial ID. In Ontario it will cost you $35.00 and is good for 5 years, but maybe paying $35.00 will give you the initiative to get your butt out to vote?

Laters, BC

Election Reform, The Railroad Job.

I had a bit of a funny pass through my Facebook News Feed today.

It was a cartoon of a bunch of people in a room, and the caption was something like… Quick, Canadians are all watching the Olympics, let’s talk about election reform.

I snickered not just because it was funny, and I thought it was funny, but because it was true.  The sad part is the joke is being played on us.

I have some qualms about some of the items in the 247 page bill that Pierre Poilievre dropped on the House just the other day, but there is some good in there as well.  My biggest issue is in the way this bill was presented and the “debate” that has followed it in the House of Commons.

Some of the members in the House have said that traditionally, a bill of this importance would have been discussed by all the Parties in meetings or committees and that each Party would have the opportunity to have their input and hear the reasoning behind what the government was proposing be in there.  There would probably have been invitations to people involved like the Head of Elections Canada and others who are knowledgeable about our electoral system.  None of this happened.

Poilievre says that he had a meeting with Marc Mayrand, the Head of Elections Canada to which Mr. Mayrand and Elections Canada said never happened.  Apparently they did meet, but that was some time ago and it sounds like that meeting was not considered a discussion of what should be in this bill, according to Mr. Mayrand, but rather a more general discussion about how elections should be run and possible changes.

Think about it.

The bill was introduced by Poilievre on February 5^th at 3:30 pm and the ensuing debate lasted until about 5:30 pm.

By 1:10 pm On February 6^th, the very next day, Peter Van Loan rose to move that Time Allocation be applied to the bill and by 6:15 pm on the 10^th, the bill passed Second Reading and went to committee.  The government wants the bill back in the House by March 1^st.

It doesn’t seem very Democratic to me.

The Harper Party is telling us that Democracy is only 30 days long and happens every 4 years or so during the election period.  They have it wrong.

The vote is not Democracy.

The Election is not Democracy.

The campaign is not Democracy.

These are all parts of it, but no one thing is Democracy.

The Harper Party side seems to believe that once the votes are counted, that the winning side no longer has any responsibility to act Democratically.  What they don’t get is that the people that we elected are our representatives and it is their duty to ask questions that are pertinent on our behalf.  The shortened timeframe made it almost impossible for any of us to digest what is in the bill and to let our Parliamentarians know our feelings and to have our input considered in the House.  And heaven forbid that your MP is a Harper Party member, unless you side with him or her all you’ll get is lip service if you’re that lucky.

The way our Democracy is supposed to work is that a Prime Minister selects people who will make up his Cabinet.  That group is called “the government”.  Everyone else is a Private Member.  The government’s job is to produce legislation and the Members debate the bills.  They are supposed to hold the government accountable.

It is not supposed to be Blue Team, Orange Team, Red Team, and so on.  It is supposed to be People making the government prove its case that a bill is a good one.

I almost laughed when I scanned the “debate” on the Election Reform bill and saw none other than Ted Opitz stand up to laud the actions of the government to end vouching.  You may remember Ted took his case to the Supreme Court to avoid losing his seat after a court threw out a number of votes, enough votes to call the outcome of the election into question… not because there were “vouched for” votes but because the paperwork wasn’t properly filled out.

Didn’t we send Ted to the Ukraine to oversee the elections there too? *sigh*

This isn’t a case of passing legislation.  It’s a Blessed railroad job.

We don’t know who thought up these proposed changes other than Poilievre brought it to the House.  Most of us have no inkling of what these changes really mean, and that includes the people sitting in the House voting on it.

Most of us know that when things get rushed they tend to get messed up.  That goes for baking a cake or bringing in laws.

Poilievre had 18 months to talk with the Opposition, with elections experts, with everyday people… but he chose not to.  Instead he has chosen to ram who knows who’s ideas of what the reforms should be through the House using the same tools they foist on us every time (it seems) they want something passed.

If I make it sound like this is pretty much a done deal, I think it is.  We’ve seen in the past when the Harper Party has rushed bills through the House.  When they get to Committee any attempts at amendments are shot down without any real debate.  That and the enormous amount of time these Committees spend in camera… behind closed doors.

Yes we’ve seen this, even to the point where the Harper Party realized that a proposed amendment that they killed was necessary and order the Senate to amend the bill for them.  Rush jobs.

I’m reminded of a sign I saw in a computer shop.  “You can have it fast.  You can have it cheap.  You can have it right.  Choose any Two.”

Looks like the cutbacks have hit this sign too.  The only thing we’re going to get is fast.  Until the lawyers get hold of it, and it certainly won’t be cheap.

And guess who gets to pay the tab.

Think about it. BC