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October

18, 2017

HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS

Vol. XLVIII No. 27

The

House met at 10 a.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Trimper):

Order, please!

Admit

strangers.

Orders of the Day

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Government House

Leader.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would

call Order 5, second reading of Bill 14.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

It is moved and seconded that

Bill 14, entitled,

An Act –

MR. A. PARSONS:

No, not yet.

MR. SPEAKER:

Sorry.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded

by the Minister of Municipal Affairs, that Bill 14,

An Act To Amend The

Elections Act, 1991, be now read a second time.

MR. SPEAKER:

It is moved and seconded that

Bill 14,

An Act To Amend The Elections Act, 1991, be now read a second time.

Motion,

second reading of a bill, “An Act To Amend The Elections Act, 1991.” (Bill 14)

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Government House

Leader.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I'm

certainly pleased to stand here this morning in this House of Assembly to debate

this important piece of legislation that we have in front of us and to deal with

an issue that's been presented to all of us as Members in this House. It's a bit

of an unusual situation that we find ourselves in, but it's not the first time

or last time that the situation will present itself to Members of this House

that will be forced to convene and discuss an issue of this nature.

My goal

this morning during second reading is to take my time to go through, I guess the

problem or issue we're dealing with, the legislation that's been drafted to

address that. Some of the background and history, the changes that are being

proposed, the logic and rationale behind those and to basically just take our

time to make sure we give a thorough reading to this piece of legislation.

Contrary

to some of the belief out there, there's no rush here. All Members of this House

on both sides want to make sure that every piece of legislation is given its due

time and given every opportunity to speak to a piece of legislation.

Again,

I'm speaking this in the context of the individual that may be out there

watching this or taking this in or listening. I'm trying to explain it in a way

that makes sense to people that, why are we here? What is it we are debating and

why are we doing it?

everybody knows, or should know, we have an

Elections Act in this province that

governs the conduct of elections, whether it be a by-election or a general

election that's been in place for some time. The specific one we're dealing with

is the Elections Act, 1991 , but as is

the course with many pieces of legislation, they are amended from time to time

to reflect changes that are necessary or that present themselves.

In 2007,

this House, at that time, saw amendments to the

Elections Act . I may not be exactly specific here but I'm going to

give the idea of what we're dealing with. So the purpose at that time of the

amendment that was made was to allow for extended special ballot provisions.

That was done in 2007. I believe, by my reading of

Hansard , the purpose of this was to allow for an extended period for

those individuals who may not be able to vote at an advance poll or on polling

day, to have an increased opportunity to vote.

Now, my

take – and, again, I was not present in the House at that time – is the Members

at that time were of the understanding or the belief that by increasing this

period that it was actually enhancing the ability to vote, making it easier for

people to vote, which in and of itself is an honourable purpose. The change was

made to allow for a special ballot. That's the opportunity to have – basically

your vote that is not cast at a polling booth, you receive a vote.

This

vote can be done anywhere. It can be done from your home, or if you happen to

live away. Obviously, Newfoundland and Labrador as it is, as with many

provinces, we have a transient population. Whether that's people that are gone

away to work, people that travel for medical appointments, snow birds that are

gone to Florida, people working in the Middle East, you name it: that's a normal

thing. Special ballot is quite a normal process. So this was an opportunity to

extend this.

What

came out of it, the amendment that was made at the time was to allow for people

to apply for and receive a special ballot up to four weeks before the drop of

the writ. For people out there, the drop of the writ is when the election is

actually called.

As I

find, especially when it comes to a general election, is that people forget the

writ drop because with fixed elections now you know the election is coming for

some time. The actual writ drop has become somewhat of a symbolic thing. In many

cases people are campaigning well before, politicians are out. People get that,

but the writ is still an extremely important thing because it actually begins

the elections process, the campaign process. That triggers a number of rules,

obligations that must be followed by candidates and parties. What this did was

allow for special ballots up to four weeks prior to the drop of the writ.

I'm

going to sort of try my best, and I apologize – certainly, the Members of the

Opposition know what I'm trying to say. So if I don't get this quite clear, I'm

sure they'll take the opportunity to correct me. I'm trying my best to explain

it to people out there. If I misspeak, I certainly apologize. I will have

another opportunity during this debate to stand up and clarify anything.

You

could get a special ballot up to four weeks before the drop of the writ. The

Elections Act also said that once the

writ is dropped, a campaign is to be anywhere from 21 to 30 days. That period of

time is determined by the government at that time.

A number

of things are likely taken into consideration. If you do it on 21 days, does it

fall on a Saturday? Does it fall on a holiday? There's a whole number of

considerations. That's things that the government at the time considers.

The

important thing to remember, you have 21 to 30 days for your campaign, and then

– during this process another important date that falls in there is the

nomination date. That is the date at which candidates for that election must be

declared. The original provision was that it would be 10 days prior to polling

day.

We have

election day on, say, the first of the month. We know if it's a 21-day campaign,

I believe that would fall on October 22. I think it is 21 clear days. So you

would go 10 days backward and that would be the nomination date for which

candidates must be declared.

actuality, what this special ballot allowed for – in many cases, candidates are

not declared in a lot of cases until a nomination date. So the election could be

called on the first – this happens frequently. It may have happened in the last

election. I know it's happened in elections previous. I know in my district

alone, not an election I was involved in, but the election of 1999, the

candidate for one of the parties wasn't declared until the actual nomination

day. That's just how it worked.

In some

cases you're declared the first day. It depends on the party, it depends on the

district, it depends on the person, it depends on the level of preparation. In

most cases you have a very good idea of the majority of people that are going to

run, but the rule is you have until this date. If you come after that date, it's

too late. You cannot be a candidate. There will be no candidate.

Let's

just think about it going backwards. What happened was you can get your special

ballot four weeks prior to the writ being dropped or the election actually being

called, and then you had a period of time to cast that vote where you may not

know the name of a candidate of a particular party. What that led to was the

ability in many cases to cast a ballot where you didn't write the name of a

candidate, you may have written the name of a party. So you could literally

write on your ballot Liberal or NDP or PC and cast it in. That would be seen as

an actual vote for that party. There may not even be a candidate in place.

These

were the provisions. They were debated here in the House. They were brought

forward. We're going to fast forward to 2011. In the 2011 general election – and

I can't remember the name of the district. Burin – Placentia West was the

district. What happened in that situation was you had a very tight race. The

incumbent – and I'm going to use names here because these things are all part of

public record and they've been part of the lawsuit that was brought forward.

Clyde Jackman was the Progressive Conservative incumbent and he won the election

by a very small margin over the NDP candidate Ms. Julie Mitchell.

I think

Mr. Jackman received 2,538 votes; Ms. Mitchell received 2,498 votes, which is a

very close margin. Again, I don't have the actual special ballot count here but

a portion of those votes in that campaign, the same as in every other campaign,

was made up of special ballots. Everybody has the opportunity to avail of that.

What

happened, because it was so close, Ms. Mitchell commenced a lawsuit on November

28, 2011. The allegation of that lawsuit was that Mr. Jackman won by a margin

approximately equal to the number of special ballots received prior to the writ

and challenging the results and the constitutionality of the special ballot

provisions of the Elections Act, 1991 .

Basically, the argument became – I'm sure the lawyers involved in this case will

be able to do a far better and more eloquent job of explaining, but the

allegation was that these special ballots are unconstitutional because they

prejudice a person's right to a free vote under the Charter. That became the

crux of it: You could vote in an election that was not called and vote for a

candidate that did not exist.

Therefore, that was seen as favouring incumbents. It was taking away the voters

ability to have an informed vote and, basically, it was prejudicial to an

independent candidate – somebody who is not affiliated with a party. So you

might run in this election – I'll just use my example: Somebody could have voted

for me and said Liberal, not said my name, said Liberal, but that counts as a

vote for me. Or they could have said PC or NDP. But if you're an independent

candidate, you don't have that ability. So that was seen as prejudicial.

That

case started in 2011. It was contested. There were a number of parties that were

brought to this. I believe all of the candidates were listed as parties to it. I

believe the Attorney General of Newfoundland and Labrador was linked to this as

an intervenor, which is par for the course, Mr. Speaker, because any time

there's a constitutional issue this province is linked to that, the Attorney

General is linked to that. Because any constitutional issue, we have to deal

with.

What

happened – I'm going to go forward. Since that time we've had 2011 and then we

had 2015, we had another general election, and this continued on. This case sort

of went through the court system. It took it a long time. You had a number of

intervenors. It dragged out over a period of time.

What

happened, the reason we are here, is because on September 6 of this year, 2017,

Justice Butler of the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador, Trial

Division, made her decision. That was filed September 6. And I won't get into

it, I have the decision right here; it's not overly long, but it's not a short

one as well. I guess what Justice Butler came out saying in very plain language

was that the Elections Act provisions

regarding special ballots,

section 86, were indeed unconstitutional.

Now, as

it is the case with any question of constitutionality or Charter, can it be

saved? Can it be saved? We have a breach of this Charter right, but can it be

saved by

section 1? In this case Justice Butler said we have a breach, and it

cannot be saved by

section 1 of the Charter, and therefore this provision is

invalid. It is unconstitutional; it is of no use. So the entire special ballots

provisions of our legislation, our

Elections Act , are gone.

That,

Mr. Speaker, is obviously an issue. Now, what I can say – and this is an aside

to this, and I may go back and forth to this – is that this decision has been

appealed by the Chief Electoral Officer for this province, who is an independent

office. It is not a part of government; it is independent. And they have

appealed that, as is anybody's right within court.

So right

now as it stands, this matter will likely be proceeding to the Court of Appeal

here in Newfoundland and Labrador. Again, the province has been named as an

intervenor. That's going to happen. How long that takes, none of us have any

idea. That could take some time. The first case took a significant amount of

time. My guess is that it will not take that much time.

Now,

going back to the original case, obviously with that passage of time, the fact

is there was a whole new general election in that period. We can't go back,

rewind the clock and change what happened in that. We can't do that. What we can

do is change our legislation going forward, so that we avoid a situation where

we have an election with unconstitutional provisions and have the possibility of

having an election or a by-election specifically in this case – this is one of

the main reasons why we're here so quickly is that we don't want to have a

by-election without special ballot provisions.

The

reason that is, and it is listed in the case, and I believe it's a case from

British Columbia, is that it's also been recognized that the failure to have a

special ballot provision can also be deemed unconstitutional. Many people said:

Well, okay, we had the special ballots; they're no good. Let's have the

election. But, no, no, if you don't change this and if you don't replace the

provisions, you're also going to have an issue, but on the other end. You need

to have special ballots and there's nobody in this House who will disagree with

that.

The fact

remains that in this province, as in any other province, people may not be

around for advance polls; people may not be around for polling day. Every one of

us has seen that. Certainly, I just used my own district where I have a number

of people that are seniors; they have to do a fair amount of travel for health

care and whatnot. It can be hard to be around on these identified days. In some

communities in my district, there is actually not an advance poll because

they're so small. So we need to have special ballots. This is a necessary thing.

One of

the things that you could do is go back to court and ask for an injunction to

say that we're going to continue on and have a by-election using the rules that

were there in place just to get us by. I would see a couple of issues with that.

I'm not personally a fan of going forward with rules that have already been

deemed at one level of court to be unconstitutional. They've already been seen

as an issue.

Secondly

– and this is just my personal opinion – I can see the inherent issue with being

able to vote in an election that's not called and for candidates that don't

exist. When you just say that itself, it doesn't sound right, so I have no issue

with getting rid of that provision and it's been recognized that is an issue.

I'm

going to continue on. I'm going to apologize, Mr. Speaker, because there are so

many tangents that I could go off on and ways I go off on. I'm going to try to

keep coming back to the crux of the argument, why are we here.

We have

to change this provision. We all know that we have to do this. That wasn't the

issue. The decision comes down September 6. We already know that there's going

to be an analysis. Like any court decision that the government is involved in,

do you appeal, do you not appeal, what's going to happen? The second part of it,

though, is with that act what are we going to do going forward because there are

always risks the possibility, even theoretically that a by-election can be

called.

first, there might not have been a sense of urgency per se. Keep in mind that

our Elections Act also says

that upon a resignation of a Member, a by-election must be called within 60 days

and it must be held within 90 days. The original period of time under that act

said your campaign is going to be 21 to 30 days; the nomination date was 10 days

before the polling day.

So the legislation says if you resign, any Member of this

House that resigns, you have to call that election within 60 days. My guess –

and I wasn't a part of any debate

that dealt with that – but my guess is the reason for that is nobody

wants any district in this province to be unrepresented, not to have

representation in this House for a long period of time, and 60 days is deemed –

and I don't think there's ever been a challenge to this – to be a reasonable

period of time to call that by-election.

What I

can say is if you look back over, by-elections over the last 10 to 12 years –

again, there have been no by-elections called since, I believe, 2014; 2014 was

the most recent by-election. The range of time between resignation and writ

dropped, the election actually being called, has ranged from one day right up to

60 days. It's been the full gamut. The last by-election – and I'm hoping I can

find the chart at some point. I have a beautiful little chart here somewhere.

Humber East, the resignation of the former Member for Humber East was November

3. The writ drop was November 3. The election was November 25. That's a pretty

quick one there.

You go

back to St. George's – Stephenville East. The resignation was June 2, 2014. The

writ drop was August 1, 2014, and the by-election date was August 26, 2014. So

that was the full 60 days.

If you

go back right to 2006 and 2007, there's a wide range here. We've had three that

were one day. We've had one that was 60 days, 16 days, 52 days, 38 days. There's

a true range right across that spectrum. That's how it's gone.

Going

back to the reason we're here. We have this court decision. We know we have to

change the legislation because it's unconstitutional, but then what happens we

had the resignation of the Member for Mount Pearl North. In that case, I can't

remember the day he announced his intention to resign. I think the resignation

was October 11. I think October 10 or 11, it was in that range.

In that

case, the good news in some ways is it wasn't a snap resignation in the sense

that you just resigned your seat right away. What happened in that case was the

Member announced I'm going to be stepping down effective this date. In some ways

the positive news is we had a period of time to sit back and say, okay, we know

now that as of this date you have to have a by-election within 60 days, if

that's what happens.

That

created the sense of urgency that brings us here. That creates that sense of

urgency. We knew – again, there was an analysis going on at that point but as

soon as the Member says I'm going to resign, we know we're going to come here.

The decision – what I will say is that immediately at the time the Leader of the

Official Opposition said we need to get the House back in session. We need to

have a session to change this to get ready. That's not a bad idea. The fact is

we needed to come back here, and I understand the call to come back here and do

that.

The

reason we could not convene it right away is there's no point to coming back to

the House, in my opinion, unless you had the legislation ready. Again, we didn't

want to bring legislation in that wasn't fully analyzed and prepared and

scrutinized. We wanted to do the work. We wanted to have the stress test. We

wanted to have multiple eyes on this and multiple conversations on this.

What we

did do – we also didn't want to wait, and I agree with the Leader of the

Opposition. The Leader said you've got to call the House back, we have to debate

this. I agree. I agree we do have to call the House back. Right now, the next

session of the House is November 6.

Even to

the viewer out there that is not aware of how this House works, in a lot of

cases prior to us being government, governments before that – again, I'm only

going back as far as I can recall. If that's been changed, well, my apologies,

but generally speaking there was no rule on this. There was an addendum or an

appendix to the Standing Orders that said you should call the House back no

later than, and it should sit no later than.

In most

cases, we know we're going to guess that it's going to be – and generally

speaking, our House always opens sometime in November, early November. In a lot

of cases, actually, after Remembrance Day, and our House usually opens sometime

around the first week of March, but there was nothing set in stone.

In a lot

of cases the notice was put out and we usually got an average of a weeks' notice

saying the House is coming back, but you were not for sure. One of the Standing

Orders this House has changed is that's not going to be the case. That for all

Members we should have a very good idea – the same as the House of Commons, you

know when the House is going to be sitting.

We know

now, already, the House is going to sit on November 6. We will all be back here

November 6, as is the regular course of business. We made a decision that we did

not want to wait until November 6 to deal with this piece of legislation. We

felt it was more pressing. I don't think there's any disagreement amongst

Members that we needed to get back here and to deal with this as soon as

possible, rather than wait till that session. That would be almost a month after

the actual resignation, and roughly a month-and-a-half after the intention was

made public that the Member was going to resign.

We are

here, and we have this piece of legislation. What we've done – again, I don't

think anybody disagrees that there's a sense of urgency. In fact, I know nobody

can disagree because Members opposite have said you got to have the House back

here. We got to deal with this. That's why we're back here. So nobody disagrees

with the sense of urgency, but one of the issues that were brought up in Justice

Butler's decision was that it didn't seem as if there was a whole significant

amount of debate on that previous bill.

That's

something that all Members of this House are sensitive to. Nobody wants to come

in here and debate a bill that ends up being flawed or unconstitutional, or

negative or wrong. Nobody wants to be a part of that. Sure there's legislation

that you put in place that you might not like but it's necessary, but it's

another thing to have a piece of legislation that comes in that's found by a

court to be unconstitutional.

I agree

with that. Everybody agrees with that. One of the things Justice Butler said was

when you look back at the debate – and I've got the figure there and I don't

have it in front, but I think the second reading for that bill back in 2017 was

roughly 2½ hours, and I think the Committee stage was roughly 45 minutes, give

or take. This substantive part of this legislation was debated in the course of

one day.

The

other thing that you'll get from reading the

Hansard , which is the written

documentation of the proceedings of the House of Assembly, is that the

Government House Leader at that time made mention numerous times that if the

Opposition wants a briefing we will line up a briefing. What I take that to be

is that there was no briefing offered, as per usual. I don't know what the setup

was like back then, I wasn't there, but what I can say is there was not even a

briefing at that time.

I don't

know how the Members at that time had the debate. The Member for St. John's East

– Quidi Vidi, she would have been here, so she's going to have an opportunity to

talk about that because she was a part of that debate and would have been a

Member of the NDP at that time. She can put in her experiences with that debate

and what she went through.

But

going from what I see from Hansard , it

wasn't a significantly long debate. I don't think there was a whole lot of

issue, per se. Again, I'm only theorizing here, but I'm theorizing that the

reason was that on its face the legislation at that time appeared to be for a

good reason.

I don't

think anybody meant for something bad. I think everybody thought this is an

opportunity to have more people voting in an election, so I get that. But, at

the end of the day, Justice Butler has found that no, it is not constitutionally

sound. It, in fact, penalizes certain people, and it favours incumbents.

Therefore, it does not stand.

So we

come to where we are, which is we know we have to do this. Over the last number

of weeks, solicitors within the Department of Justice have been putting together

a piece of legislation that, in many ways, it's meant to fix the situation

that's been laid out by Justice Butler and is to allow for what we consider a

constitutionally, compliant bill, one that will withstand challenge.

Now, I

had a question in media scrum yesterday. They said: Well, shouldn't

constitutionality be the minimum bar? Yeah, that's obviously the minimum bar.

This is not just a piece of legislation that is done to meet the constitutional

standards. This is also one that we've done scrutiny across the country. We've

looked at our history in this province. We think that it improves upon the

legislation as it was. We think it's something that is good, solid legislation.

Albeit, it's been done very quickly due to the situation that's been presented

to us; (a), a case that we can't avoid it, it comes on us, and a resignation

that we can't avoid. We need to move forward. We have to get this done.

The

second

part is that there's an appeal right now. Who knows where this will rest

when things move forward? This could be appealed and then it theoretically could

be appealed again. Who knows where it's going to rest? The other thing is that

this is just one part of what I think are other changes that we need to make to

not only our Elections Act but just to

when you talk about democratic reform.

One of

the mandates that have

been given to me, by the Premier, is to launch an all-party committee in this

House comprised of Members from both sides, availing of the services, of

academics, media, professionals, experts, where we can talk about democratic

reform in this province, both of this House, both of our elections process. We

want an opportunity to hear what everybody has to say in the hopes that we can

make changes that will improve.

I can

say that this House has had success in the past in those endeavours. Just

recently, there was an All-Party Committee on the shrimp fishery; Members

represented this province's interests in Ottawa. Very recently, we had a report

put out by the All-Party Committee on Mental Health, which I think was a very

strong success. In fact, one of the issues that were brought up to me was if you

start an all-party committee when one party is in power and then it ends up in

the other one, that's not going to work.

disagree, because the All-Party Committee on Mental Health was struck by the

government of the day: the Progressive Conservative Party. They struck the

committee and to that I say, bravo! That is a positive move and we agree with

it. We voted for it, and everybody agreed with it.

They

convened the committee, but it's not a simple topic. It's not something you can

rush through; it's something that takes time. Therefore, that committee's

mandate stretched past that time, past the 2015 election and into the mandate of

this government. Now, I was a member of the committee in the first part; I have

not been a member of that committee since the election. My understanding – and I

haven't had this indicated to me – is that the committee worked well on both

ends, that people had lots of success and we have a report here that is going to

benefit the people of this province. So it didn't come down to what government

was in; it came down to the membership which was made up of everybody.

What I

would say is that the democratic reform committee – now, whether it's a special

committee, I'm not going to worry about the structure. The main thing is that

it's going to involve all Members. It's not going to be a government-led party;

it's going to be a Member-driven party – a Member-driven committee.

The

important thing to remember is that will take the time that it takes to make

these changes. One thing we have learned in the past in this Legislature, and I

think it's been learned in every Legislature, is that when you rush things

through you can end up with mistakes. That's not something that anybody wants.

Nobody wants that, especially the people of this province. We're all cognizant

of that fear.

What we

did in this case is put together a piece of legislation. I've explained the

circumstances here. I want to talk just a second about House procedure, again,

for those watching that may not understand how that works. I say to them: I

certainly didn't have any idea how it worked before I ever got elected. It's

been a learning process.

Every

bill has a number of stages. There's the notice for the bill where you give

notice that you'll be introducing the bill. The bill is not debated at that

point, it's not discussed and, in fact, it is not released in many cases. You

can only do that stage of a bill one day. You cannot do any other stage on that

day.

The

second concept is first reading of a bill which, again, is a pro forma reading

of the title of a bill. At that point, generally speaking, there are some

exceptions. But the bill is distributed then to all Members of the House; it's

posted on the House of Assembly website. There's no debate on that but now

Members have the substance, the actual bill that is being debated, the

legislation.

Generally speaking, first reading takes place on one day. There is no debate on

that day and you don't generally do the other stages on that day. Then you have

second reading followed by Committee. This is the substantive part of the debate

where all Members get an opportunity to stand and speak to that bill. Generally,

the introducer of the bill gets an hour, the Opposition Member responding gets

an hour and all Members get 20 minutes to speak to that bill. I've been in

debates where every Member spoke and I've been in debates where very few spoke,

depending on the substance of the bill.

Committee follows that. So, again, everybody gets one opportunity, except myself

in this particular case introducing this bill. I get to lead the bill and I'll

get to conclude the bill. Then it proceeds into Committee stage, which is an

opportunity for Members – that's how it really gets into the debate side where

it's 10-minute intervals where Members of the Opposition stand and can ask

questions or make comments. They have 10 minutes and then the government can

stand and respond to that.

Now,

that can go on for 10 minutes or 10 hours; it depends again on the substance of

the bills. We've had some bills in this House that we've kept them in Committee

for days. We've had some that are very quick, because some of the bills we do

are housekeeping-type bills.

Finally,

after the conclusion of Committee, we have third reading. Third reading is

another – there is not usually a debate. Sometimes there is. It's an opportunity

– people do have the right to speak, but generally speaking that's on another

day. So a bill can take a number of days.

Now, in

the past, one of the provisions of our Standing Orders is that Members of this

House can grant unanimous leave to discuss a bill. So what that does is that

allows Members to proceed past the normal stage for various reasons. Sometimes

that's been done to expedite a process. That's been done numerous times in the

past, but it can only be done with unanimous consent.

Now,

I've made quite clear, and I want to put it out there, because at no point has

my intention been to speed up the bill in the sense of hurrying debate, rushing

debate, rushing the passage of this bill. We have all the time we need to debate

the bill. I don't think anybody wants to come in and debate a bill and a special

session that we're here because the last bill led us here. Because that was –

now I can't say it was rushed, but because the last bill got struck down in many

ways, the provisions got struck down, we're here because of that.

Do we

want to repeat history? I say to you, Mr. Speaker, no we do not. So we are going

to take all the time we want and debate.

What I

wanted to do was instead of coming in on a Monday and just doing notice and

nothing else, no other proceedings; I had hoped to begin the substantive part of

debate on Monday, to do second reading. That was my hope. Now, that didn't

happen.

Again,

my point is not to belabour that here today. That's not an issue I'm trying to

make. I'm not trying to get into that today. I just wanted to explain my purpose

for starting that today. I wanted to get in the House and have that discussion,

knowing with full expectations – I fully expected this bill was going to take

some time. It was going to take Monday, it was going to take Tuesday, it's

probably going to take Wednesday. It's going to take however long it takes.

That's just how this works.

I have

no problem, nor does any Member of this House, being in the House to debate.

What I didn't want was to come in and not be able to get down to business right

away and to get past the formality, and that's been done. Anyway, that's neither

here nor there. This is an opportunity for me to explain where my head was.

AN HON. MEMBER:

We're here for the long haul.

AN HON. MEMBER:

Right to Christmas.

MR. A. PARSONS:

I hear the Members over there saying: Right until Christmas. Well, I would say

that's not compliant with the Elections

Act , but I get the gist of what the Member is saying, which is we need to

take this time.

None of

us wants to be here for a bill, because when a bill gets struck down, it doesn't

look bad just on one person. It can look bad on all Members, especially when a

bill is agreed to unanimously. If everybody agrees to it and there's something

wrong, then everybody must share in that.

So, that

being said, what we have here, and this is where I'm going to get into the

substance of the actual bill. What I would say, Mr. Speaker, is I'm going to – I

have a significant amount of time left to speak to this. Members are going to

speak to this, and I would suggest this is the stage – and I'll put it out

there. There has been some discussion in the media about how we have this bill,

we don't want to listen to anybody and here it is.

What I

would say, Mr. Speaker, is that is not correct. What I want to do is have a

debate here in the House where I speak as to the government bill, our logic and

rationale and reasoning for doing that, and the Opposition's going to stand up

and they're going to say this is either why we like it or don't like it. These

are the sections we have an issue with or don't have an issue with, and if they

have a suggestion they're going to put that forward. What I would say, Mr.

Speaker, and I think my record would show this, is I will always agree with a

resolution that improves upon a bill, meets all the requirements, including

constitutionality, that improves upon it.

I have

no problem hearing from the Opposition and saying, this idea makes sense. I'll

tell you why, Mr. Speaker, because I had the benefit of serving in Opposition

for four years. There were a number of pieces of government legislation that in

some cases never proposed anything for it. It made sense. In some cases I

proposed it and it didn't happen. In some cases we did propose changes that were

accepted. Now, it's frustrating. It is frustrating when you are in Opposition to

propose something that doesn't get accepted. I've been there. I get it. At the

same time, if I'm going to propose something, I always wanted to propose it with

an underpinning that was evidentiary, that fulfilled a structural necessity.

It's one

thing to change something for the sake of change, because one thing about this

act is one time limit affects another. They need to be taken together. Do you

know what? I know for a fact the Opposition knows that. I know that.

So what

I'm saying, and I want to make it clear to absolutely everybody, is I am

absolutely one hundred per cent open to solutions to a problem that they believe

exists. I am open to amendments they want to make, but I need to hear, here in

the House – I want all Members to hear it, because all Members play a

part in

this. All Members form a part of debate.

should hear what the amendments are and what the rationale is for it, and then

let's move forward. Now, as I've done in the past as Opposition, if I move an

amendment and I explain why it makes sense and the government turns it down,

then it was my job to explain why the government's bill didn't make sense. That

is their right. That's their obligation, but at the same time, I'm not just

going to agree to a change because it's proposed.

The bill

that we have put forward here I think is a very good piece of legislation. I

don't want to suggest that I played a large

part in drafting this. There are a

number of lawyers within the department, lawyers who have been in service to

this government, public servants, for years. They helped draft this. I think

they've done a very good job, but if they hear of a solution that makes sense,

they're fine with that too.

I look

forward to this debate. This is a necessary debate, one we need to have. I look

forward to hearing from all sides, all Members to – okay, the bill we have here,

we know we have to get it done, what's the best bill going forward with the

situation that we have.

When you

look at the bill itself, Bill 14, Mr. Speaker, what I'm going to do – and,

again, it's not a huge bill. There are some changes in it which are not, I would

say, revolutionary. There are some changes that I know cause concern to the

Opposition. To that I'd say let us know why it causes concern and what your

solution is to that concern.

Right

now, as it stands, this bill that we have, I think, fulfills all the needs that

have been outlined to us. I think it is completely compliant with the decision

that Justice Butler laid down. I think it will withstand constitutional

scrutiny. I think it will withstand any challenge. I believe that to be true. I

rely on the expertise of individuals who do this. That's why I trust in them and

I think this is good.

Some of

these are huge, some are not. I'm going to go through this. Basically, what

we're dealing with – and I have a very handy chart that's been put together for

me talking about the changes, what they were, what they are and why.

My time

is running short. I have about 20 minutes left. So I'm going to continue on and

try my best to get through them, knowing that the way this debate is structured,

that if I don't get it all done in second reading, I can take all the time I

want in Committee to explain it because that's what we do.

The

first one,

section 1, what it had there, the previous clause under

section 58(1)

– and just keep in mind, it was

section 86 that was ruled unconstitutional or

invalid, but because of the changes we need to make there, it requires changes

in other sections. This is

section 58. What it used to say was that the day of

polling to be fixed by the proclamation required under

section 57 shall be a day

not less than 21 days, not more than 30 clear days. That was the election

period. You could have no less than 21, no more than 30.

What

we've changed here is we're saying that the day of polling to be fixed shall be

at least 26 clear days from the date of the proclamation. What we've done is

we've added five days on to the minimum that was before. The other thing to keep

in mind is that there is no cap. This is not unusual. Every jurisdiction is

different. Some jurisdictions put in sort of a cap that has to be minimum and

maximum, and some say a minimum of X number of days, with no limit on the other

end.

One of

the questions that's been brought forward I understand is that it is unfortunate

because it could theoretically allow for a party to call an election –

AN HON. MEMBER:

A snap election.

MR. A. PARSONS:

– a snap election that could

allow for four months of campaign. Now, I think history will show, and I only

have to go back to the 2015 federal election for proof of that, that the

incumbent government at that time did that and it didn't exactly pan out for

them. It didn't work.

In some

cases, it may be a benefit to have a short election. Some governments say –

again, going by the experience of the previous government, they felt that in

certain by-elections, a short election period worked. It depends on the

circumstances and that is the prerogative of the government to do so.

The

former administration has gone from both ends of that extreme, 21 to 30. It

depends on what you want to do. That's their right. In this case we're saying

that we have 26; it's still going to be an extended period of time. What I would

say, though, is that having been through this I can say that an extended period

of campaigning is a very expensive proposition. It's an expensive proposition

for all involved, and it is not something I think that's ideal.

understand that they've brought that up, but what I'm going to do is I'm going

to allow them the opportunity to talk more about that when they get the

opportunity. This is what we allow: We said there's no need to have a cap.

Again, same with the feds, same with certain territories; this is not an unusual

thing. We fall in line across Canada. Every province has differences.

Nomination day: The day to be appointed under

section 57 for the close of

nomination shall be the fifth day after the date of the proclamation.

Whereas

before, it said the close of nomination shall be the 10th day before polling

day. This is another issue that I understand the Opposition has some issue with

and that they will bring their concerns forward.

One of

the issues that we found ourselves in, what we've done here, we have not allowed

– and I'll get further into this; some of this I'm sort of going ahead to the

other sections that I'll get to. But what we're saying here is that writ day,

election day, within five days you must have your candidates in place.

Now,

before, it was election day and 10 days prior to nomination. The issue we have

here is that prior to that, with the writ day 10 days before, you could have

special ballots and vote for a candidate that did not exist. That, Mr. Speaker,

is unconstitutional. It does not allow for voters to be informed, and that's

what a lot of this process comes down to. It comes down to we need to have an

informed electorate able to cast their vote, knowing who their candidates are

and having a choice to be informed, to know who the candidates are and who they

want to vote for.

So the

issue here is that with the special ballots, Justice Butler did not like special

ballots before nomination. Because again, theoretically, you could cast your

vote for a candidate that does not exist which leads to the uniformed

electorate, which is the constitutional issue that we're dealing with in the

first place.

What

we've done is say writ day, nomination is five days. There's no special ballot.

Special ballots will be from that day when you know the candidates, forward.

This allows for an informed electorate. If we had done the 10 days prior to,

you're going to have the same issue that we're here dealing with, which is an

uninformed electorate. We don't want that; we can't have that.

The

other issue when it comes to special ballots is just due to the nature of – not

just this province, every province, but they take time. So you have to get that

ballot from the fifth day, you have to mail it out to wherever it goes. Whether

that's Ramea, whether that's Qatar or whether that's Florida. You have to get it

out, allow for the vote, and get it back and to be counted. That's where

Elections NL comes in.

Going by

what existed before, using these rules, the longer you have a nomination period,

the longer you have to have an election. And they coincide with each other; you

can't extend one without extending the other.

The

period that we have suggested here is not an issue to Elections NL. They're

saying that will give us ample time to send the special ballot out, to have the

vote, to have it received, to get it back, to count it up and to make sure that

it's put there. It's democratic, it's constitutional, it will work and it is

better than what was there before. What we had before does not work.

The

other thing – and this is one of the things that I like – is that we can still

allow – and we are going to – for special ballots to be applied for up to four

weeks prior to the writ drop. You can think if you weren't allowed to apply for

the special ballot until the fifth, that's a huge logistical challenge for

Elections NL – huge. So what we've done is you can apply any time if you know

that by-election is coming – let's just use the theoretical situation in Mount

Pearl North. We knew come whatever day that the former MHA said he was

resigning, that yes, there's a by-election coming, let's get that application in

for a special ballot. I know I'm going to be in Florida, I know I'm going to be

gone to work, let's get that done. You knew that. Or a general election, you

definitely know because you know when it's going to be, so you can do that for

that four weeks.

What

we've done here is that people can still apply. It's received by the Chief

Electoral Officer, he's able to compile that and have it ready so that after

that nomination period is over, boom, the special ballots go out and we fulfill

the constitutional need and it's a system that will still work. Special ballot

voters will get their ballot, get to cast an informed vote, get it back and it

will count in the election. To me, that is what is important.

Again,

there are some provisions here – I won't get into the nitty-gritty but obviously

if that fifth day falls upon a holiday, then that's extended one day. Those are

all still maintained; that's not an issue. Obviously, you can't have that on a

statutory holiday.

New bill

section 3, there's actually no change from what it was. Just so we know, we're

basically amending the entire section. So there are certain sections that stay

the same. The reason we're doing that is to avoid somebody saying well this

section actually remained, so therefore it's still unconstitutional. We're

getting rid of all of it, bringing it all back in – some are new, some are the

same, but it's actually a new amendment so it will be constitutionally

compliant.

Application for special ballot: It's a change in the title but the same wording.

Again, there's no substantive change there to that whatsoever. Bill

section 3

continued: special ballot administrator appointed. This is no change from what

was there before, apart from one change pursuant to legislative drafting

principles. People want to understand what legislative drafting principles are –

and this is a job that, again, I have to give kudos to the individuals who do

this work. We have a new legislative officer, Susan King. This is a tough job.

Section

86.1 has been re-introduced to ensure the appropriate administrative processes

are available to support the modified special ballot voting mechanism. One comma

has been removed at

section 86.1(5) between “Chief Electoral Officer” and

“shall” pursuant to legislative drafting principles. So just so people know

there's nothing nefarious going on here, that's just the changes made.

Section

3 continued, additional information – this is no change; 86.2 there's no change

from the previous.

Section 86.3(1): approval of the application. The change

here: On receipt of the application under

section 86 – this is the application

for the special ballot – the administrator or their designate shall ensure that

the applicant's name is on the list of electors for the polling division. If

it's in order, issue the special ballot kit and cross out the name of the

applicant as it appears on the list, noting “special ballot.”

Again,

the purpose here is we need to ensure meaningful participation of citizens. We

also have to make sure that if you vote by special ballot, that you're not going

to vote again later. We can't have that situation arising here. And there's some

change there; “electoral list” has been changed to “list of electors,” really

substantive stuff here.

Casting

a vote,

section 86.4(1), the change here is that we are now allowing for

enhanced flexibility in the format of special ballots. A new feature is the

ability to use ballots which include the name and particulars of candidates,

consistent with the fact that special ballot voting now only occurs when the

names are known.

So as

before, I'm voting Liberal, I'm voting PC, I'm voting NDP – not going to work.

Now, you have to vote the name or the name and the party. The reason that's

there is – I'll use the example of the 2015 election, where the Minister of TCII

actually ran against someone with the same surname.

You

don't want a situation where you write in – pardon, Mr. Speaker, we don't want

to use the name Mitchelmore when there are two Mitchelmores on the ballot. You

need to know the party as well. That's why that is allowed there. I'm glad to

say we have the good Mitchelmore in here. I'm glad to say that.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. A. PARSONS:

We've changed that. Again,

this comes down to the ruling made by Justice Butler.

Section

86.5(1), Appointment of representative; this is no change from the previous.

Section 86.6(1), Counting of ballots; what we're doing here is we're providing

enhanced discretion to the CEO on the timing of procedural steps. Basically,

we're making it easier for the CEO.

Just so

people understand, the CEO, the Chief Electoral Officer, is an independent

Statutory Office of the House of Assembly, non-partisan, not of any party.

That's an independent office. What we're doing is making it easier for that

independent office to do their job based on the new rules which are being

proposed.

There

are some internal changes here that need to be done. A lot of this is just

cleanup based on the changes that are made.

We'll

move forward. Transmittal of results,

section 86.7, no change from the previous;

Name of electors,

section 86.8, no change from the previous; Administrative

procedures,

section 86.9 and Special ballots,

section 86.10, no change from the

previous.

Section

4, which deals with campaign advertising,

section 226.1, there is a change

there. My understanding is the change is to ensure that campaign advertising

still follows by the rules. This is one of the changes that the Leader of the

Opposition yesterday in the House said, well, sure, they made a change after the

briefing. What I would say is, yes, the change was made after the briefing and

as soon as the change was made they were notified.

I don't

think this is as consequential to the bill as the other concerns. I give kudos

to the people that are doing this work, providing the briefings, when they saw

that: look, we need to change this to make sure the law is good. We better let

that other crowd know, and they did. They knew that on Friday. So I just want to

make sure that's clear to everybody out there.

This

changes it. Before, you might have campaign advertising where we're dealing with

21 and 30, now we're dealing with at least 26 days. I would call it

inconsequential but it's not. It's consequential but it's more of a making sure

we respect the dates that are put in place.

The same

thing with

section 5, Rates for advertising, 226.2. This has been changed to

reflect the new electoral period and allows for internal consistency. It

prohibits companies from charging higher rates to registered parties or

candidates for broadcasting time. Again, that's good.

Going

back for a second to 226.1, this also deals with the blackout period. There are

certain periods in election campaigns where you cannot advertise. This takes

care of that as well. I think that change was explained to Members opposite.

So, Mr.

Speaker, these are the changes that are being proposed to this piece of

legislation. We think it's a good, solid bill. I'd like to think – again, this

is in opposition to sometimes how bills were debated when I was in Opposition. I

think we've gone out of our way.

In this

case, we knew we had to come back. I don't think it was any surprise that this

House would be called back in an emergency session. The fact is all Members of

this House knew when it was going to come back at the same time. There was as

much notice as could be provided as possible. It's a special session. Everybody

knew this was going to happen.

provided the bill as soon as possible so that it could be looked at, and we

provided the briefing, which is more than what was done in 2007. Now, I'm not

blaming the crowd in 2007. Maybe the practice was different then, but there is

not a bill right now that goes into this House that is not briefed, given a

technical briefing by the bureaucrats so non-political people – that deal with

this.

I think

we all have an opportunity to be briefed. I think the Opposition had a chance to

be briefed. I have to come back to this while I make – this is not about rushing

debate. We're going to stay here as long as necessary to make sure we have the

right bill.

My only

goal – again, I am not going to blame the Opposition House Leader who I have

very good dealings with. We had a good conversation about this. The problem is

the Leader of the Opposition is saying we're trying to rush it. I say to that,

no.

All I

wanted to do was to come back and get the debate started, rather than have the

House open and no real business taking place, other than the Question Period,

which is fine. I enjoy Question Period too, but I want to make sure that's clear

because that was certainly not the intent. In fact, Mr. Speaker, this is not a

bill that I thought would be politicized.

Now, I

understand in the course of business that's how politics works. I get that, but

I think the bill that has been put forward meets all the scrutiny. It deals with

the decision that has been laid to us. What I would suggest, Mr. Speaker –

again, this deals with the situation at hand. The situation that's been

presented to us that we had no control over.

We have

a court decision from back when they were in government, and we had a Member

resigning from their caucus. We're dealing with it. We're trying to do it as

quickly, expeditiously but also as thoroughly as possible as we can. We all know

we need to have this by-election, but we're going to take all the time to have a

debate.

That's

why I say, Mr. Speaker, I will get another opportunity to speak to this. I look

forward at that time to hearing what the Members say. I know one of the Members

opposite is very pessimistic about the opportunity for amendments going forward,

and what I would suggest is I'm always open to an amendment that makes sense.

I'm optimistic, I am not pessimistic.

Let's

have this chat. Let's have it here on the floor of the House in front of

everybody and the cameras where the rest of the province can see it. I look

forward to this. I look forward to the debate, and I'll now turn it over to my

colleagues across the way.

Thank

you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Opposition House

Leader.

MR. HUTCHINGS:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It's

certainly a pleasure to take

part in second reading of Bill 14,

An Act to Amend

the Elections Act. It's a very important piece of legislation from the

perspective of the democratic process in our province and what governs those

activities in an election, either a general election, by-election and the rules

that are open and transparent for the public and how it's operated so everybody

is fully versed in how elections are carried out in Newfoundland and Labrador.

At many

times we look to other jurisdictions as well in Canada in regard to how

elections are conducted. Through that process we come up with the best piece of

legislation that we can, certainly in a Canadian basis to make sure it's the

best democratic process that we can have.

As the

Minister of Justice and Attorney General commented, in introducing the bill and

speaking to it, he talked about the amendments in 2007, the special ballot

provision, how it was introduced, the rules around that and how it proceeded,

and subsequent to that, after the general election in 2011. One of the elections

in the province at that time – in the general election, one of the participants

at that time that had lost the election in a very close margin challenged the

provisions of 2007, which were in the Elections Act at that time, to court, and, subsequently,

Justice Butler made a ruling on the constitutionality of those special ballot

provisions that were done in

2007. Thus, based on that, which came out earlier this year, there was a need to

address what Justice Butler had written in her decision related to, as I said,

the amendments that were made in 2007.

At that

time – and, again, I guess further from that we had here in the House one of the

40 Members and Members on our side, the Member for Mount Pearl North, who put in

his resignation as the Member for Mount Pearl North. Under the

Elections Act , there are provisions of

the time frame to call an election, to have it completed and concluded. I think

it's within 60 days it needs to be called; it needs to be included within 90.

In that

framework, there needed to be a move forward to look at the provisions of the

special ballot as Justice Butler had identified in her decision. That was the

context in which we see ourselves here today in regard to being in the House and

revisiting the Elections Act . Through

Bill 14, proposed by government, that's what we're doing here today.

From our

perspective in the Opposition, on September 12 the Leader of the Opposition at

that time, recognizing that the clock was ticking in regard to dealing with this

issue, requested government at that time to reconvene and ahead of any possible

vacancy or what we knew was coming to amend the special ballot provisions of the

Elections Act in the court which was

ruled unconstitutional. That was looking at the perspective of let's get back

here, let's have lots of time and let's start the process because we knew it had

to be done.

The

Leader of the Opposition certainly did that. He talked about certain things that

are triggered that moment that a seat becomes vacant. Those things would

ordinarily include the special ballot provisions, which we are here now, that

the court had ruled at the time to be unconstitutional in Justice Butler's

decision. He talked about it being imperative and urgent that we fix those

provisions so any by-election can proceed fairly and meet constitutionality

provisions that Justice Butler talked about in her decision.

This has

a long runway. As I said, that was in mid-September, September 12 that the

Leader of the Opposition called for that, but we're finally here today to deal

with this issue.

From

there, last week, I think it was on Thursday, we were advised that the House

would reopen to deal with this, this particular provision and an amendment to

the act. At that time, the government offered a briefing on the content or the

direction of Bill 14 and what the tone and scope of that bill would be.

So on

Friday morning, we met with officials from the Department of Justice and went

through the proposed bill, or the draft bill, I guess, because the actual bill

we didn't get until it was introduced in first reading and that's the actual

bill that's here presented on the House floor, Bill 14.

So we

went through the draft with the officials from Justice. We certainly had a good

discussion: myself, the Member for Conception Bay East – Bell Island, the Member

for Cape St. Francis, the Member for Conception Bay South and the Leader of the

Opposition. So we had a large contingent from our caucus be part of that

briefing because we know the importance of this piece of legislation and the

importance of when you're amending the special ballot that it's done

appropriately and done in the context of what Justice Butler had indicated. We

also had the Leader of the Third Party as well and various staff members from

both offices that attended the briefing.

In that

briefing there were a number of questions asked, particularly related to the

nomination period, and I'll get into that further and some of the things that we

will be looking at and asking for in debate as we proceed over the next few

days. The nomination period was certainly one of them. There were questions on

that. The duration of the writ period, where right now we know there are

parameters set in terms of the minimum requirements and the maximum requirements

for the writ period and what this bill is proposing in regard to changing that.

There

was also discussion from the perspective of the administration of the current

rules and the administration of the proposed bill and what that would mean for

the Chief Electoral Officer and the operations of that office, particularly

related to the writ period, the period for nomination, to get the special ballot

kit out after the nomination period concludes, what's that time frame,

administratively can the chief electoral office do that. If they can't get it

out and the ballots printed with the actual names on it, there's a proposed

section in Bill 14 that talks about: We'll send them out and someone can write

in the party and/or the candidate name.

But

still, we have concerns with that, and I'll speak to that later in regard to

what Justice Butler had said in regard to the right of the individual to know

who actually is running, who actually the candidates are, whether it's from a

recognized or registered political party or whether it's from an independent.

People have the right to know, and should that ballot that someone sees as a

special ballot reflect that same ballot that someone would receive or view when

they walk into the ballot box on election day. So shouldn't those ballots be the

same and reflect actually who the candidates are?

As we go

through, we'll certainly look at that and propose some discussion on that, and

amendments, and what we need to do to look at that component of the bill. Maybe

I'll just talk a second on Justice Butler's decision. I know the minister, in

speaking, talked about 2007, and I think it's agreed and I think Justice Butler

spoke to it as well in regard to was there enough due diligence done by all

sides, by all parties, here in seeing what the possible results would be of the

special ballot provision at that time, and the amendments; and that we need to

take the time to go through this meticulously and have debate here, have

discussion here, reach out and consult, talk to not only folks within the

bureaucracy here but to the players outside that this certainly applies to and

has to enact and execute any amendments to the legislation. And obviously, an

important player would be the chief electoral office, the administrators there,

those that are involved in running the election under the act, and any of those

and all those parties concerned.

In her

decision, Justice Butler talked about – obviously, it was amended in 2007, with

support at the time from all political parties. Some of the amendments at that

time looked at an application to vote by special ballot, maybe made to the chief

electoral office, and that was the beginning of that process and beginning not

more than four weeks before the issue of the writ of election and ending on 6

p.m. at a day to be determined by the chief electoral office.

that's one of the issues that obviously, in the decision, was recognized. You

had four weeks prior to the writ being dropped when someone could access a

special ballot and vote, but the issue with it that was clearly identified in

the decision was that at that point in time there would be no candidate

identified or no candidate possibly – or wouldn't be formally nominated under

the rules of the Chief Electoral Office. That was the concern, and you would

write in just the party name. The decision that was made, that was viewed to be

unconstitutional.

In 2007,

they also talked about a special ballot kit shall be distributed to an elector

by an election official only and returned to the CEO by the elector or an

election official only. That talks about the process in terms of that special

ballot kit and how it would be carried out. There are changes as well to that in

the proposed bill. Those were some of the provisions that were brought out at

that time in 2007 that were recently reviewed based on the appeal in the courts

of the 2011 contested election.

The

decision also goes on and talks about, “The process for amendments to

legislation in this Province was explained during the discovery” and it was the

Leader of the Third Party who made representation at that time. “While a Bill

receives three readings, the first actual debate occurs on second reading” –

which we're doing here today – “where members are restricted to twenty minutes

each.” It talks about, “Unlike other jurisdictions that have active all-Party

committees to study Bills, the practice was not followed in this Province for

Bill 21” at that time when it was done.

mention that because that goes to the issue of taking the time to deal with a

provision like this, an amendment. I guess that's what Justice Butler is

speaking to in regard to making sure we do due diligence to particular bills,

they go through their first reading, second reading and go through the Committee

where actual amendments can be outlined for all to debate.

We had

asked – and certainly the Leader of the Third Party as well – that we would have

a discussion after we were given a briefing on Friday. Obviously, Saturday,

Sunday, the weekend, and then Monday we were convened here in the House.

From

time to time, and spending almost 11 years here in the Legislature, the breadth

and tone and scope of a particular bill, when it comes to the House and is

introduced as in first reading, oftentimes as you go through there are

amendments that are proposed in Committee. Sometimes those amendments are well

intentioned. They're interconnected with the whole various other parts of that

piece of legislation or that bill, and they may be viewed out of order because

they don't reflect the tone or the intent of the original bill. That often

happens.

Our

request to have a discussion with government in regard to the bill and what we

discussed within our briefing was let's have a discussion about some of these

key components and whether those can be reflected in the bill that's brought

here in first reading. That was the intent of what we were trying to do and work

collectively to do that. Share of ideas, share of thoughts related to Justice

Butler's decision, what that would look like and could we sit down collectively,

and the Leader of the Third Party as well, and see if the bill that's brought

forward in first reading could reflect some of those concerns, then we could go

on and have a discussion. It would be fair and open on what those changes were

and what other changes would be amended during the process. So that was the

discussion we wanted to have, to bring to the House here, but we're certainly

happy to be here now and having that discussion.

Justice Butler's decision as well, in terms of speaking of the process we went

through in 2007 and how we need to improve that. She talks about, “It is clear”

– this is referred in 2007 debate – “from the addresses given by the Government

House Leader (Rideout) and the Opposition House Leader (Parsons) that both

parties were aware that the amendments would permit special ballot kits to be

accessed before the writ was dropped. It is not entirely clear from the

transcript” – that would be Hansard transcript – “however whether members were

aware that special ballot votes could be

cast before the writ was dropped.”

I guess

that gets to the issue again in terms of doing a very enhanced and detailed

examination of the bill proposal, the amendment and what the effects would be in

the electoral process.

There

was also concern expressed, and Justice points that out, “that the Bill appeared

simple but that there was detail involved that needed to be discussed in

Committee” or certainly some other means. There was reference to other

provinces, and other countries were considering and suggested an all-party

committee or some mechanism to come together and have a broad-ranging discussion

on how we ensure the bill meets the requirements of today, and certainly years

to come in regard to the electoral process.

important component of what, I think, Justice Butler recommended is – she talks

about satisfies the effect on voter's rights of casting special ballots before

the writ was dropped, and or before candidates were officially nominated was not

considered before the enactment of the special ballot provision of then Bill 21,

back in 2007. Things like the implications of having a special ballot vote cast,

incumbents in their districts attending functions and incurring expenses,

reimbursed under constituency allowance; so also potentially creating an

advantage.

In doing

any of this you've always got to look at is there a level playing field? Is

there an advantage for an incumbent? Is there an advantage for a sitting

government? That's in the total context of the

Elections Act . It's not about one party or another. It's about in

context of democracy and how we ensure it's a level playing field for someone

that sits here today or someone that decides tomorrow they'll put their hand up

and they want to take a shot at public life and politics. They have a time frame

and they have a period and they have the same equal playing field as someone

sitting here today.

That's

fundamental. I think it's fundamental to what Justice Butler spoke to, and it's

important that we take the time to make sure we follow through on what was

recommended in that decision.

Another

point I wanted to reference in regard to the decision that she referenced in her

decision: “I accept that in simple terms the purpose of the special ballot

provisions is to enable voters to vote who otherwise would either be unable to

do so or would find it extremely difficult to do so. Against this benefit, I

must weigh the infringements I have found, namely: that special ballot voters

may not be sufficiently informed so as to meaningfully participate in the

electoral process; and that candidates who are unaffiliated or running against

an incumbent are impeded from meaningful participation in the election process.”

That

would go to the issue of the special ballot kit and what's gone out in the past.

It wouldn't identify a particular voter because it is four weeks prior to a writ

being dropped and prior to official nominations being required to be registered

with the elections office; therefore, Justice Butler indicated that would be

unconstitutional. That's one of the provisions we have to amend as we move

through this process in the next few days.

Mr.

Speaker, I want to touch on some of the amendments that are proposed in Bill 14.

As the minister, when he spoke to the bill he sponsored, he did speak to some of

the provisions of the act that were struck down in the decision of Justice

Butler. I think it was provisions 86 to 86.10.

All of

those provisions, from my understanding from the decision that was rendered,

were struck down. So there is currently no provision for special ballots right

now in the Elections Act, 1991 in

Newfoundland and Labrador. That's why we're here to deal with the total

provisions within the act, even though some of her concerns were directly tied

to the unconstitutionality of things like making voters aware, at the time they

vote, of

who's on the ballot and what the actual names are. So the whole provision

of that 86 to 86.10 had to be reviewed.

In doing that – and the minister pointed this out as

well – some of the provisions under that

section didn't require a change, but

some did. I'll certainly go through and look at some of those to make people

aware of which ones they were.

Calling an election, there was no requirement for a

change. When you look at things like Polling day: “T he

day of polling to be fixed by the proclamation required under

section 57 shall

be a day not less than 21 clear days from the date of the proclamation nor more

than 30 clear days.”

So that's the provision that exists right now in the act.

The new bill: “T he day of polling to be fixed by the proclamation required

under

section 57 shall be at least 26 clear days from the date of the

proclamation.” So that's a change. The implication of that is the minimum

election campaign duration will be 26, not 21. So that's a change – the minister

certainly recognized this as well – but there's no longer to be maximum election

campaign duration.

Now,

there was reference to some experience that happened in the federal government

in 2015 and the governing party of the day, but I don't think we should

reference what may have happened or an experience. I think the ultimate point

here is that is it an open and fair playing field for all concerned and what's

the best interest of the elector.

Recognizing some of the changes that we're talking about here, you have to make

the duration of the election period sufficient enough to ensure that the new

provisions for a special ballot allows that to take place, allows the chief

electoral office to have the time to make sure that the constitutionality that

Judge Butler was talking about in terms of making people aware of who the

candidates are is able to be put in front of people when they cast a ballot. So

if we need to extent the period to allow that to happen, I don't think we should

be trading off one against the other.

The

issue here is to ensure that what's being described in the decision can be

implemented and we put in place the provisions and the allowance to have that to

occur. That's the important element here I think as we go through debate.

We need

to have discussion here about the maximum duration. Is there a need to be an

outer limit? We believe there does, but what is that outer limit? The reason we

have set, in the past, the maximum duration ,

I think, in the first place was to ensure that no district is without a Member

for a lengthy period of time, and having a fixed date certainly allows that to

not occur.

We go to

a provision that talks about Nomination day: “The day to be appointed by the

proclamation required under

section 57 for the close of nominations of

candidates shall be the 10th day before the day of polling.” “The day to be

appointed by the proclamation required under

section 57 for the close of

nominations of candidates shall be the fifth day after the date of the

proclamation.”

that's the change, we've gone from 10 to five days. That's one of the major

concerns we had and certainly made government aware of that in regard to getting

candidates in place, whether it be a by-election, whether it be a general

election of the five-day period.

Whether

it's this party or any other party in power, you could call a snap election, you

could call a by-election. Knowing that information, that it is coming, is

certainly extremely important and changing it from 10 to five, does that give an

unfair advantage to the governing party at any particular time. We think it does

and we think there's not enough time there for someone to go through the process

of deciding whether they would run for elected office. A political party needs

to have a nomination process. In a general election it would be 40 nomination

processes within that party over a five-day period.

That's a

lot to do when you have people out there, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who

have their own careers, have certain commitments, they need to make a decision

within that short period, and then the process within that party, or even for an

independent who wanted to step forward to elected office, needs to go through

that period and certainly five days doesn't seem to meet that requirement of

being fair to those that would want to step up.

Vote by

special ballot is a provision currently in the act. There's no change to that.

The special ballot administration, that's appointed by the Chief Electoral

Officer and goes through the administration of the special ballot; no change to

that provision as well.

Section

86.2, the special ballot administrator or his designate, that talks about the

application of the special ballot does not contain the information that's

required. There's a process to how that's addressed. There's no particular

change to that either.

Section

86.3: Approval of application; there are changes to this in regard to the close

of nomination and what happens in regard to three times the bill says the

special ballot kit will be issued after the close of nominations. That gets back

to the decision made by Justice Butler in regard to not having special ballots

available pre-writ, that it should be available after the writ is called – or,

I'm sorry, after the close of nominations. But the bill does not say that the

ballot itself must contain all the candidates' names or even that a list of all

candidates' names shall be included in the special ballot kit that is mailed

out.

The bill

leaves an option that the special ballots might have blanks for the person to

pencil in a name. While the bill seems to recognize what Justice Butler was

suggesting in regard to the provision of names, it gives an option for the chief

electoral office to say if we can't do it or we're too busy, we don't have the

staff to do it, or makes the decision that we're not going to do it, they still

have the ability to send out a ballot with no names. We believe that's in direct

contradiction to what Justice Butler concerned herself with the decision and

said this needs to be amended and here's why. It's unconstitutional to layout a

ballot for somebody with no description of who the individuals are.

So it

gets to the point of when nominations close, someone applies. They can apply

prior to. I think it's four weeks prior to they can still apply for a ballot,

but they don't receive the ballot until the nomination close. And then it

becomes what's on that ballot when they receive it. The first provision says

that they will try or make an effort to get the names on the ballot, but the

second provision basically says, well, for some reason, if the Chief Electoral

Officer is not able to do it, we'll proceed with the old method which, again,

seems to contradict the court decision.

Some of

the things we'll look at and talk about as we go through. At the very least, a

ballot that goes out, and for some reason if there are time constraints or

anything like that, it definitely should include a list of nominated candidates

with the ballot; if nothing else, just to make sure that someone who gets that

are fully versed in who the people are, whether it's affiliated party, whether

it's an independent. I think some of the discussions with the Chief Electoral

Officer, if I remember correctly, is that it's in the public domain. Once

nominations close, people's names who are seeking office in one of the 40

districts, it's in the public domain and that should suffice.

That's

not always the case. People may still not know in full context who those

individuals are who have been officially nominated and who are the official

candidates. So it's imperative in the process that those names are put in front

of someone who is casting a ballot the same way they are put in front of them on

polling day, that they can see who those individuals are and the party that

they're affiliated with.

We could

also look at, it said, the list be sent out, but the other is the timing issue.

After the close of nomination in terms of printing ballots, there's no longer a

maximum campaign duration, but I think we could look at that in terms of how we

could accommodate within that time frame and still have set dates but making

sure that we don't sacrifice one side of a provision in the legislation for

another, and that we can accommodate it all within the provisions of an

electoral period.

If we go

to 86.4, Casting the vote, there are changes here that talk about people voting

for just a party but it also leaves the option to send out special ballots that

do not contain the names of any or all of the candidates. So that's the concern

I just expressed and how we need to discuss that and talk about it as we go

through.

As we go

through the next few, there are no changes. Appointment of representative,

86.5(1), there's no change. Counting of ballots, 86.6(1), there's a minor

change. This relates to the minor change to allow the Chief Electoral Officer to

set the time of the day that ballots will be counted. That's within the

discretion of the Chief Electoral Officer.

I guess

that goes to the issue of timing within that period, the activities that go on.

Because we have the writ dropped, prior to that someone could apply for a

special ballot, if we know it's a fixed date, and then once the writ is dropped

the process can start to respond to those requests for special ballots. Then,

after the nomination period, as I said, the special ballot kits would go out,

those need to be returned, a process needs to be struck to count those special

ballots and to make sure that those people are taken off the electoral list for

that particular district.

As well

in this legislation, if someone is to apply for a special ballot, they're not

allowed then to vote at a polling station; they must vote by special ballot.

Once your request for a special ballot kit is acknowledged and approved and it's

sent out, the provision is that you then would vote by special ballot and would

not vote at a polling booth on election day.

This

allows, as I said, the chief electoral office to have some input into the

administration of the electoral office in terms of time frames. There's also a

period for an advance poll. Obviously, that's another period where these need to

be set up in 40 districts and that carried out in regard to ballots getting out,

other infrastructure put in place that's required to run an advance poll. All of

that and all of these activities are within that window of time that must be

done and make sure democracy is done and people have access, which is so

important.

We go to

another provision, subsection (6), another minor change and that goes to setting

the date of when the special ballots will be counted. As we go through the rest,

Campaign advertising was one that the minister as well spoke to when he was up

in regard to a campaign advertised throughout the post-writ campaign period up

to the day before a polling period, not just for 21 days up to the day before

polling period. I think the court and the decision clearly called for such a

change and that was identified in some of our discussions. At our briefing I

think it came up; we had discussions of it there.

As well

Rates for advertising is one that was looked at and talked about. Allowing

campaign advertising throughout the post-writ period and, as I said, not just

for up for the 21 days, up to the day before polling period. I don't know if

it's going to be covered here, but there's also in regard to advertising some

discussion in various jurisdictions in Canada. Maybe sometime in the future

we'll look at it in regard to not just a political party but any organization

that's spending money on campaigning for or against a particular party or

particular candidate, particular lobby group, that there will be a requirement

under the Elections Act that that

money would be declared, who's sponsoring that advertising, where it's coming

from, how much is being spent on that and that would be open, clear and

transparent as well. Which I think is something important that, at some point,

we should look at as well.

Those

are some of the changes, Mr. Speaker, that have been defined to us in regard to

Bill 14 and what's being proposed by the current government in Bill 14. I'll

take us through, from our perspective and our discussions that we had as a

caucus, what we see as areas of change or we'd like to see certain aspects

looked at as we go through debate. We will be bringing forth amendments as we go

through here, looking to amend the current Bill 14.

Basically, we have four changes to the act. As I said before, the rules of

debate as we go through and the breadth and tone of the original bill, sometimes

it can be seen as getting an amendment through the process, sometimes not. As

well, there are various provisions within a bill and a piece of legislation that

are interconnected. To amend one piece may affect several others, so it may not

be within the merit and within the general context of what the intention was.

That's why we supported having a discussion prior to the first reading of the

bill to make sure if there was any accommodation that could be done, that we

could it collectively.

As we go

through and we look at these various amendments, I certainly encourage Members

to be flexible in terms of having a discussion and looking at bringing these

amendments to the floor for debate and for a vote as well. We don't want to end

up with flawed legislation or challenges that resulted from the 2007 exercise.

That was pointed out as well and, respectfully, the minister when he introduced

the bill, recognized as well and I don't think any of us, collectively, 40

Members here, would want to see that again.

So we'd

want to take our time to do it and to go through the provisions to make sure we

meet what's needed for the democratic process in Newfoundland and Labrador but,

as well, very reflective of the court decision; that's the impetus for what

we're doing here today. It's about people's right, about basic rights and the

constitutionality of a piece of legislation.

The

first thing we're going to talk about as we go through is informing voters of

their choices. We believe there should be an absolute requirement that special

ballots be printed with the names and affiliations of all candidates. If we're

going to wait for nominations to conclude, that's the whole point of allowing

people to vote with that information. That allows people to be informed. It

should not be an option.

We don't

think there should be an option in the legislation to say: Well, we'll try to

get the names on the ballot, but if we can't, there will be an option for the

chief electoral office to go in another direction. We think that's in

contradiction to the decision and in contradiction to the constitutionality of

what she referenced in her decision. As I said, we've talked about that over the

last few days. I'm looking forward to having a discussion as we move forward in

debate.

The

other issue we talked about and a concern to us, and we'll bring to the floor an

amendment, is we looked at ensuring sufficient time for nomination. There must

be sufficient time for parties to have time to nominate candidates. There is not

only fixed-date elections in this province, the House of Assembly – at any time

there could be an election called. There's also a set date, we know in this

province, for elections or by-elections.

someone decides they're going to leave, you go through the process of

individuals deciding they're going to seek public office. There can't be an

unfair advantage for anybody if that actually occurs. Right now, it's a 10-day

period; this is proposing five. We will bring forth an amendment to deal with

that, to look at how we can ensure within that time frame of the writ being

dropped to what the maximum time period is for an election, that within that

there's a reasonable time frame for nominations to occur and nobody to have an

unfair advantage. That would be our concern with the current bill as it is

presented today.

The

other issues we have concern with, and we will be bringing forward, is ensuring

sufficient time for special ballot voting. Recognizing there's a time frame here

– and the Chief Electoral Office has to run these provisions, has to carry them

all out, but we can't sacrifice the right for people to have a time frame, for

it to be fair, for people to access the information they have to mark a ballot,

to infringe on a time frame. We have to accommodate it all. If that means

extending the period, we need to extend the period, because it's a fundamental

right for people to have time and have the information in front of them to make

an informed decision in our electoral process. This was part of Judge Butler's

decision.

Special

ballot voting is a right that is constitutionally guaranteed. That was, I think,

established in a previous decision done in British Columbia, a court decision. I

think Qatar – I think the Minister spoke in regard to various parts and people

having access to vote, no matter where they are. It doesn't matter where they

are, they should have that constitutional right to access a special ballot.

What

we're talking here and what this debate is going to be about is how do we ensure

that's done in the fairest and most democratic way that's a level playing field

for all concerned? I think collectively that's where we all want to be. We can

debate back and forth but hopefully at the end of the day that's where we want

to land, for the benefit of this piece of legislation that's for those who sit

in the House, but for everybody else out there too who has ever thought about

running for elected office and wanting to put their name forward.

How much

time would be needed to get special ballot kits sent out and special ballot

votes returned? That's the context of some of the stuff we're talking about. We

can calculate a reasonable number from the bill. The government proposed minimum

campaign duration of 26 days, with five of those days for nomination. So this

would leave 21 days for special ballot voting. The Chief Electoral Officer

informs us that 21 days is sufficient time to conduct special ballot voting,

then it's a reasonable number to use in the legislation. We have to be cognizant

of that on the special ballot provision.

The

final one is ensuring a maximum time for elections. I think that fits into the

context of being able to have all these requirements, special ballots,

identifying, closing nominations, getting the kits out, getting them back,

getting them counted. Making sure the process is conducive to making sure it's

the process we want to have and is best suited and follows the guidelines that

were suggested by Justice Butler.

As I

said, the government sets a minimum time of 26 days for an election but removes

the maximum time. We don't think this is reasonable and where we need to go. The

principle of fairness demands election periods be as predictable and as defined

as possible, because that makes it a fair and open playing field for all

concerned.

Government parties, whoever that is, have the awareness of when the election –

if there was a snap election called or whether there's a by-election coming,

it's within their control to how that would roll out, what it would be. Voters –

would they be disadvantaged by a lengthy campaign that denies them an

opportunity to be represented in the House of Assembly within a reasonable

period of time?

We have

to have a discussion about what is a reasonable duration of an election campaign

in trying to accommodate everything we're talking about here in terms of Bill

14. That's a discussion we need to have. We believe the absolute minimum time is

important.

We think

we need somewhere in the range of 21 days to conduct special ballot voting, from

some of the discussion we had and things we've done. Three days for the Chief

Electoral Office to print special ballots after nomination close. We need to

have a defined period for that. We think that can be done and the process can be

followed through. An important one is a 10-day minimum before nomination close,

because as I said before, we need time to allow that process to unfold and not

anybody to be disadvantaged in any way from that.

Together, 21 plus three days and 10 days equals about 34 days is the minimum

length of a campaign. I think with that we can accommodate what's required and

is asked to be required under the decision made by Justice Butler. As I said, we

can't shortchange any rights or any provision in democracy by a time frame but

we have to make sure we can accommodate all concerned.

Those

are the four issues, as we go through, that we'll look to have some changes to

and bring forth amendments to the House here as we proceed. The first one, as I

said, was a campaign of 26 days with no maximum, but a campaign of 34 days

minimum to 40 days maximum. That's a discussion we'd like to have. Not a close

of nomination five days after writ day, but a close – to look at that, 24 days

before voting day, as long as it provides a minimum of 10 days for nomination.

That's what currently exists now and we think that's important, that it's

maintained.

The old

system of the current rules looked at the polling day and worked backward. What

we have here now is that it's front-end perspective, because it's from the time

the writ is dropped and then how do you have the time after that to make sure

the provisions and the activities that need to be carried out are completed.

The

other one is the special ballot kit must include a list of all candidates so

voters are fully informed of their choices. I think that's clear and concise to

what Justice Butler talked about in terms of constitutionality, of people

knowing who the individuals are and that it's ensured they have that information

in front of them when they vote. Whether they're voting by special ballot or

whether they're voting on polling day, that whatever is put in front of them is

what is consistent and there's no difference in the voting process of what

they're doing.

Mr.

Speaker, we've outlined for the House here and for people out there in regard to

Bill 14. We'll be bringing forth some amendments. We certainly ask the House to

duly consider them, and all Members to make sure that some of the errors or some

of the oversights in 2007, we won't go through again. I don't think we will.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER (Warr):

Order, please!

Thank

you.

MR. HUTCHINGS:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Some of

the things that happened in 2007 we can certainly, through a process here that's

open, that is fully engaged and we take all the time we need to make sure it's

done, that this amendment in Bill 14 will truly be reflective of Justice Butler

and what her intent was in regard to the provisions in the decision.

As we

look as electors and parliamentarians that we bring our experience and

knowledge, those of us involved in an election campaign in the past and

together, collectively, we can build the best piece of legislation for the

Elections Act , the amendment, that fits the requirements of Newfoundland and

Labradorians.

That's

our role as parliamentarians and I'm looking forward to an open and good

discussion, and looking forward to bringing forward the amendments on behalf of

our party on this side and to work with all people on all sides of the House, as

I said, to make sure we have the best piece of legislation we possibly can have.

Thank

you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Member for

Labrador West.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. LETTO:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It's a

pleasure for me today to rise and talk about Bill 14, a bill to amend the

Elections Act . The task that's before

us is a task that all parties in this House must deal with because it affects

all of us. This is not only a bill, as has been alluded to, to benefit the

governing party; this is a bill that's there for all parties regardless if

you're in Opposition, regardless if you're in government, wherever you are.

I think

once the Justice has ruled on a particular part of a bill that's ruled

unconstitutional then it's our duty to put forward a bill that certainly

eliminates the unconstitutionality of any piece of legislation. That's what

we've tried to do here.

When I

listened to what the Opposition is saying and some of the arguments that they're

using and some of the amendments that they're proposing – of course, we're open

to amendments; that's what this process is all about. We should already be in

amendments; we've wasted two days because of political posturing and whatnot. We

should already be in discussion. We should already be discussing those

amendments and there's no reason why we shouldn't be. Nevertheless, we are where

we are and we're going to deal with it as the situation presents itself.

I guess

I will address a couple of the issues that was brought forward by the Opposition

House Leader. When I listened to him, I don't think they're that far away from

what is being proposed here. I think what we're all trying to do is put forward

a bill, put forward changes that are not ruled unconstitutional and that meet

the needs of the voter.

So in

that respect, Mr. Speaker, one of the things that they put forward, of course,

is the nomination period is too short: five days. What we have to understand

here is that we have to keep in mind the best interest of the voter. The voter

is the person that has to be addressed here and their constitutional right to

vote in an election, and that includes special ballots.

What is

happening today with special ballots, as everybody in this House has said – and

the Minister of Justice has expressed himself and the issue very clearly, so I'm

not going to even try to repeat what he has said because his expertise has

allowed him to express that situation very well. What I will say is that when

you look at the period that's given for nomination of candidates, five days, we

all know, Mr. Speaker – for instance, in this case that we're presented with

now: Mount Pearl North. We've known since September, or at least a long time ago

that the Member for Mount Pearl North would be resigning on September 11, 2017,

and formally resigned on October 10, 2017. All parties in this House have had

ample time to get candidates in place and no way should any party in this House

be limited or restricted by the five-day nomination period.

When you

look at going back in history for instance, it's a very rare occurrence, Mr.

Speaker, to have a snap by-election – very rare. Most of the by-elections, the

majority have had 24 days between the resignation of an MHA and the writ

dropping. So that's 24 days. They know when an MHA resigns for whatever reason

that we're faced with a by-election. We know there's going to be a by-election.

We don't have to wait until the writ is dropped to get our candidates in place;

nobody does.

That

argument to me is not –

MR. EDMUNDS:

Not substantiated.

MR. LETTO:

That's a good word for it.

When we

look at what Justice Butler has ruled, the unconstitutionally of the existing

special ballot system, we have to change. When you look at special ballots, they

talk about not having enough time. Well, I refer to my good friend, the Member

for Torngat Mountains. In his district, for instance, if you're going to put a

special ballot system in place – and by the way, Justice Butler has ruled that

both systems of what we have now, the four weeks prior and the time before the

nominations are finalized, are ruled unconstitutional.

Let's

take for instance Torngat Mountains. We have a by-election and we know now that

10 days prior to voting day does not work for Torngat Mountains, if we're going

to follow the constitution and follow the ruling of Justice Butler. No way can

you get a ballot up to Torngat Mountains filled out and back here in that time

period. Anything can happen. I just use Torngat Mountains as an example because

there are many more around the province. You go to the Southwest Coast; there

are isolated communities there that the mail system could be interrupted at any

time.

When you

look at that, we have to find a way. I think if you extend this election, and

the legislation addresses that, to 26 days, minimum of 26 days with no maximum

in place, the 26 days and the five days, you have 21 days to get a special

ballot out and back, which I think is reasonable – very reasonable. They argued

and they're going to put forward amendments. I encourage them to put forward

amendments. We can't wait. We'll discuss the amendments; we'll debate them,

absolutely. As I said, we should be doing it now.

The

legislation put forward, I think, addresses that. There's no maximum now on the

length of election. They're going to recommend a minimum of 34, I think, is what

they said, the Member, with a maximum of 40. Come on, really? Do you want to get

into those by-elections that take a month and a half to do? That's not even fair

to the candidates, let alone to the voters. Twenty-six days is quite reasonable.

They

talk about then the five days and getting the ballots out and back and nothing

changes because they still don't have the names. The names may not be on the

ballot, Mr. Speaker, but the Chief Electoral Officer has a duty. That's part of

this legislation. Maybe they can send the list of names with the ballot. If the

ballot is not ready, the names can go there because all the nominations are in

place. There's nothing in this bill that says that can't happen.

There

are certain things that are reasonable and taken for granted. If you're going to

send out a ballot, sure, the names would go with it. So that's another amendment

they're going to put forward, and that's something that maybe we'll look at

addressing.

Mr.

Speaker, when you look at snap elections, as I said earlier, there have been

very few. When you look at general elections now with the set election dates for

general elections, the two I recall – I've been around this racket for a while –

in 1989, I think the then leader, Tom Rideout at that time, called an election a

month after Premier Brian Peckford resigned. That was in 1989. It happened again

in 1996 I do believe when then Premier Tobin became leader when Premier Wells

resigned and there was an election called within one month.

Now,

again, Mr. Speaker, anybody who's in this House, any party who's in the election

business whether it's Liberal, PC, NDP, Independent, whatever, knows that if a

leader resigns that there's going to be an election – unless you keep changing

leaders of course – they know that there's going to be an election. So any party

that's worth their salt will take action to get their candidates in place.

The

ruling of Justice Butler came on us around the same time as the Member for Mount

Pearl North had resigned and we knew we had to make some changes. I think what's

happened here – so I'd like to address just a couple of things in the bill.

First of

all, I'll go back to the 26 days, Mr. Speaker. The old legislation said a

minimum of 21 and a maximum of 30. To address the length of time again to make

it reasonable for special ballots, the new legislation says a minimum of 26

days. So we've added five days on to the minimum, with no maximum. That

addresses the concerns of the Opposition regarding if we have enough time to run

an election and get the special ballots in place. Again, the fifth day for the

nominations to be in place – and I think I've made that argument that whether

it's five days or ten days, regardless, once a by-election is triggered, the

parties will be proactive and get their candidates in place.

In the

approval of the application, again, when you look at the old system whereby you

could vote by special ballot four weeks even before an election was called, we

can understand where Justice Butler was coming from on this, when you have

people just filling in party names, or when there are no candidates in place and

when you look at the Independent candidate, could be an Independent candidate,

it really gives them a disadvantage. They are not included in that ballot if

they are not nominated. So we understand where this is coming from, and I think

what's been put forward as a reasonable address to that.

Again

Mr. Speaker, we talk about the voting itself on the ballots. Under the old

system, a ballot was sent out to the voter and they could fill in, as I said,

the party or the name if the nominations were in place. In a lot of cases in the

special balloting that was not the case, but again there are many that are. So

now, they a choice; the voter can mark in the name of the candidate if the

candidate is nominated, and he has to be nominated, of course, before they can

mark it in. They can mark in the name of the candidate and to avoid any

confusion in case there are two last names, they write in the party.

that's pretty clear, Mr. Speaker. I think those instructions are very clear and

very constitutional, and I see no problem with that. Again, I go back to it.

They talk about, well, why can't we wait 'til we have the ballot filled out? And

that's always a possibility. I think we should leave some of this to the

discretion of the chief electoral office. They are the people responsible for

this, not us here in the House. The Chief Electoral Office has the

responsibility to run a by-election and to run it in the best and most

constitutional way possible.

We all

know that before the ballot is sent out that all names, all candidates have to

be in place. That puts everybody on a level playing field. Whether you're

Liberal, whether you're PC, whether you're NDP, you're Independent, you're the

Green Party, you're the Rhinoceros Party, Newfoundland First Party: no matter

what party you are –

AN HON. MEMBER:

Paul Lane party.

MR. LETTO:

Paul Lane party or whatever.

Sorry,

Mr. Speaker, I shouldn't have mentioned names. I take it back.

Anyway,

this puts everybody on a level playing field, Mr. Speaker. I think it puts

everybody in a place where we all have equal opportunity here.

Mr.

Speaker, I think what has been done here is a good response to the ruling by

Justice Butler, that what we have in place now is unconstitutional. I think that

what we put forward here certainly will be open for debate.

We do

look forward to the amendments that are going to be brought forward by the

Opposition Parties. I'm sure there will be a few. I think the Official

Opposition has indicated there will be four amendments they will put forward. We

look forward to that debate.

Mr.

Speaker, in closing, I think the intent of this – I think everybody, all parties

in this House agree with the intent of this legislation. There is some probably

disagreement with some of the time periods that have been put in place, but I

think for the most part all parties agree that we had to address the ruling from

Justice Butler. What we've put forward here, we think is very reasonable.

As the

Minister of Justice has indicated from his expertise and the advice that he's

gotten from his officials in the Justice Department, this will not be

challenged. This legislation is firm, is good legislation and that it will not

be challenged in the courts.

Mr.

Speaker, on that note, I will take my seat. I would ask for the co-operation of

the Opposition Parties to get this in place so that we can move ahead with the

by-election in Mount Pearl North and let the games begin.

Thank

you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Member for

Fortune Bay – Cape La Hune.

MS. PERRY:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It's

certainly a privilege and an honour to be back to this hon. House and delighted

to be back here with all of my colleagues. As I look around I can see lots of

fresh faces, and I anticipate by December we'll look like our usual selves after

a few months here in the House.

We're

here today, Mr. Speaker, in all seriousness, because of a very important issue

that impacts democracy in our great Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. We

see from the recent court ruling that unfair advantage has been ruled

unconditional. I put forth for the record of the House of Assembly today that I

truly believe this bill has the potential to make the issue of unfair advantage

worse, in particular because of the issues we have identified and in particular

the one I will focus on is the time frame for nominations, which really does

concern me immensely, Mr. Speaker.

The

legislation as was previously written stated a person had to be nominated 10

days prior to an election. So that at least gave the voter an indication – they

had 10 days to contemplate the values each candidate was bringing forward and

who they felt would best represent their point of view in this province and the

people as a whole. However, this new bill that has been put forward to the House

by government on Monday is stating we have to have until five days after the

writ is dropped. That's it. After that, all your candidates have to be in place.

I'm

going to talk about some hypothetical situations that can arise with that kind

of legislation. I truly believe by restricting the nomination process to five

days, it's doing exactly what the court said we shouldn't do, and that is

favouring incumbents. I think this policy of having only five days to nominate

is doing exactly that. It favours incumbents, not just incumbents on the

government side mine you. It favours incumbents of all parties because we're all

ready. We all know what we're doing. Our families are onside. We don't have to

go to an employer and ask for a leave of absence. It favours all sitting

incumbents of all parties.

particular, that's an advantage to the government, because if you have more than

20 seats filled and nominated and candidates running in 21 seats, you have

government. We don't even need to go to an election. If the other parties don't

have any candidates, what's the point of having an election if just one party

has 21 candidates five days after the writ is dropped? That's a potential

hypothetical situation that could occur, Mr. Speaker. I believe this bill is

creating a very, very unfair advantage for sitting incumbents of all parties.

Mr.

Speaker, clearly, what we all have to recognize as politicians, why we're here.

It's not about us; it's not about our parties. It's about the people. It's about

the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. They are the people who brought us here

and they are the people who have the right to choose the best person they feel

will represent them for any four-year period of governance.

For each

and every one of us sitting here today, we have a legal and a moral

responsibility to always act in the best interests of our people. So I'm going

to take a different spin on this today than what's been talked about. I'm going

to look at this from the point of view as someone out there today who's

contemplating a career in politics or who's contemplating taking a run at

politics because they feel there needs to be a change and they feel they can

bring something to the table.

What are

we doing to this person out there in John Q. Public? Maybe it's someone who's

aspired to be a politician from the time they were a little tot but, today, they

could be the CEO of a large bank. They could be the CEO of a hydro corporation.

They could be in any type of position. They could be a medical doctor. They

could be a teacher.

In five

days they're expected to get to their employer, get a leave of absence, get

approval to go, figure out all their finances. So how they're going to live for

a month or two or three, or however long the election is going to be, without

any income coming in because you've left your place of employment and you no

longer have an income. All of these things are major considerations for a person

who wants to run in politics.

Again,

I'll go back to all of us incumbents, regardless of what party you're in, we

know, we're ready. If that writ drops, we can go. Not so for the person who is

out there contemplating the idea of becoming a politician. I think this

seriously restricts our pool of availability of candidates who can come forward

for all parties, Mr. Speaker. It is not fair to the people of this province

because democracy is all about everyone having fair and equal opportunity to put

their name forward and make a difference in the betterment of people's lives in

this province.

There

are also family considerations. Five days to consult with your spouse, your

parents, your children – everybody who will be impacted by your decision to

pursue a career in politics, because everyone in your family feels the

challenges and the struggles that go along with being a politician. It's not

just you yourself who are sitting here at the table.

Mr.

Speaker, as I said, it's conceivable with the legislation as proposed by the

Liberals, allowing only five days for a nomination process, that after five days

only the governing party has candidates. It is conceivable. So what would even

be the point of an election? Where is the democracy in that? Explain to me how

that is fair, if some Member opposite could get up and say to me that it's fair

– imagine if you yourselves, now, some of you are new, put yourselves in the

shoes of the person who's contemplating running. Would you have gotten all your

ducks in a row in five days?

Besides

your family and your employer and everything else you have to contemplate, you

also have to have a nomination process. And imagine there's a race-off, and

there's more than one person who wants a seat. So in addition to settling all

these personal issues, you have to run campaign; you have to sign up supporters;

you have to get out and hustle and have that nomination race.

Five

days, Mr. Speaker, incredibly unreasonable, incredibly unfair, and I think it's

going to make the issue of favouring incumbents far worse than the legislation

as it's written today stands. So that is the position that I put forward here

today as an issue of grave concern, and that every person who is a true believer

in democracy should be very alarmed about because this is a back-door way, I do

believe, of favouring a sitting government and enabling them to have a very,

very unfair advantage.

The

second issue that we need to look at is that there are not only fixed-date

elections in this province. Someone might get up and say oh, that can't happen,

we have fixed-date elections. Not true. The

House of Assembly Act allows for snap

elections in subsection 3(1). The House of

Assembly Act also allows for elections after the change of a premier in

section 3.1 and these elections can be called any time within a 12-month period.

Other parties would have no intention of when these elections might be coming –

again, clearly giving an advantage to the governing party.

Mr.

Speaker, this is a very hard thing to say, but it could even happen to the

governing party – no one knows – but we're all alive here today, no one knows

what's going to happen to any of us tonight, tomorrow; heart attacks, car

accidents, aneurysms, anything could happen. It's conceivable that we could lose

our leader overnight, and then what happens, even the governing party is put

into a spiral. So it's possible it could even happen to a governing party.

It's not

just the parties in Opposition that could be caught off guard, and that's a fact

of life. This legislation has to allow for every possible scenario. Really, I

would think if I was a Member of the governing party, I would not be one bit

happy with this legislation as it's written – I would not.

The

whole point of fixed election dates, fixed election durations and reasonable

nomination periods was to ensure that no one party is unfairly disadvantaged.

Nothing strikes at the heart of people's constitutionally guaranteed democratic

rights more than unfair advantages and disadvantages. Judge Butler spent a great

deal of time writing about that in her decision, as anyone who read it would

know. Again, I am shocked at how they would find that reducing the nomination

period is actually improving the bill. It's a step backwards, a significant step

backwards.

How much

time is reasonable to get nominations in place, as our introductory speaker

spoke about, our House Leader? We believe 10 days should be the absolute minimum

time to get nominations in place, but if campaigns are lengthened then the

nomination period should be lengthened accordingly. We're open to discussion.

We've put forward a proposal and we're open to any ideas that you can have, with

the idea being that all of us are about creating the best possible legislation

we possibly can that is for the betterment of the people of the Province of

Newfoundland and Labrador, and that strengthens democracy.

Especially with everything I watch on the news these days, I often go to bed at

night and I say: How lucky are we? How lucky are we to be able to live in a

democratic province and country? Democracy is not about control; it's about

freedom. It's about freedom of choice, freedom of speech, freedom to run for

government if you so choose. But what does this legislation do by imposing a

limit of five days only? It doesn't give the person out there in the public the

freedom of choice to run.

Five

days to turn your life upside down, quit your job, get a leave of absence, get

family approval, get a nomination done and be on the ballot – five days –

totally unreasonable, Mr. Speaker. I was shocked when I read the draft

legislation. I truly, truly do hope that this piece of the legislation is viewed

with a closer eye, that common sense prevails at the end of the day, and we do

make the legislation stronger for the betterment of all people.

It's not

about parties, Mr. Speaker; it's about the people. Fair and equal opportunity is

crucial. It's about encouraging everyone in the province to play their part and

ensuring that everyone has an equal opportunity to stand for office if they so

choose.