PM open to election law reform amendments

Justin Trudeau says he’ll welcome amendments from opposition parties to his government’s proposed reforms to laws governing federal political parties and elections.

The prime minister stressed his openness to amendments to Bill C-76 in response to Conservative demands Tuesday that government advertising and ministerial spending announcements and travel be banned during the three months preceding an election call.

And he did it again in response to Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer’s contention that the bill will do nothing to prevent advocacy groups from using foreign money to influence the outcome of elections.

But Scheer questioned Trudeau’s sincerity, asserting that the prime minister “ordered” Elections Canada to implement the changes in the bill, introduced earlier this month, before it had received “one word of debate or one vote.”

“If that is not trying to rig the rules in his favour, I do not know what is,” he charged, accusing Trudeau of “ignoring Parliament and trying to ram through his preferred electoral system changes.”

New Democrat MP Nathan Cullen, meanwhile, accused the government of “bullying” opposition parties by threatening to cut short debate on the bill.

Bill C-76 is an omnibus bill that would reverse a number of changes wrought by the previous Conservative administration’s widely denounced Fair Elections Act.