MP Nathan Cullen points to flaws of Bill C-76 when it comes to protections for free and fair elections

Skeena-Bulkley Valley NDP MP Nathan Cullen spoke as part of the discussion
this week on Bill C-76, sharing a number of his concerns with the proposed
legislation with Members of the House

The proposed legislation from the Federal Government designed to address improvements needed for the Election is under fire from Skeena-Bulkley Valley MP Nathan Cullen, who has outlined a number of concerns he has with elements of Bill C-76.

Mr. Cullen reviewed some of the history of the path on electoral reform, looking back to the Conservative era in the House under Stephen Harper and how the recent bill introduced by the Trudeau Liberals, is coming up short in a number of areas that needed to be addressed from the original changes of the Conservatives time in office.

Hailing the warning signs coming from around the world about some of the attempts to disrupt free and fair elections, the northwest MP also outlined some of those threats, such as Fake News, disinformation and misinformation of social media that are designed to disrupt elections around the world, including those held in Canada.

"The bill is flawed to say the least, hundreds of amendments at committee, we have 179 amendments I believe here, from all parties including the government side. So they took three years to get to this point and got it wrong on many levels. Now it's unfair just to simply criticize legislation, we're always working to improve things, make them better. Because this should be a thing that is non-partisan, we all agree that elections are vital to the health of this country, and those elections must be free and they must be fair. Allow the parties to argue their points and let Canadians in a free and fair way make the decision as to who they wish to speak on their behalves" 

Among some of the areas where Cullen says the Liberals are missing the mark are:

Reimburse parties according to how fair they are to women and under represented groups in Parliament.

Missed opportunities  when it comes to electoral reform changes

Look at the idea of allowing seventeen year olds to vote in Federal elections

Explore the idea of Sunday voting to increase voting participation

The theme of electoral reform has been of significant interest to the MP for many years and on the lack of action by the Liberals he was particularly disappointed in the Government  has let another opportunity for reform slip away.

"We also tried to include electoral reform changes, we all remember the famous and often repeated promise from this Prime Minister, to make every single vote count. To make sure that 2015 was the last election under First Past the Post. We wanted to help the Prime Minister keep that promise, what a radical idea,  Liberals didn't want to talk about that either"

On themes of privacy, Cullen warned of how social media has been used to learn more about people and their friends and then target them, spreading misinformation on issues of political nature.

He pointed to the findings of the Privacy and Ethics Commission in the House, which noted in their report that political parties must fall under privacy rules to protect our free and fair vote.

Observing that with the Liberals rejecting the amendments, they have rejected the analysis of the committee and that of the Chief Electoral Officer who has also expressed his concerns over the failure to address privacy issues by the new proposed legislation.

You can view his ten minute presentation to the House of Commons from the video below:




Bill C-76 continues to work its way through the House of Commons calendar,, you can explore the details to the proposed legislation here.

For more items of note from the Skeena-Bulkley Valley MP in the House of Commons see our archive page here.