"It's not clear that a political climate exists in Canada at the moment to obtain all-party agreement on anything … and maybe especially not voting reform, given Trudeau’s broken promise on changing the system and all the (ultimately) wasted committee work from 2016 to early 2017." ---

That huge package of election-law reforms unveiled by the federal Liberal government this week is not the radical shakeup to Canada’s democracy that Justin Trudeau once promised to deliver by 2019.

But inside that massive bill are some pretty big changes in our voting system. In fact, these are arguably more sweeping than the former Conservative government’s changes to our election laws five years ago — the so-called “Fair Elections Act” — much of which has been revoked or withdrawn in this new legislation.

Liberals are calling their bill, C-76, the Elections Modernization Act, a “generational overhaul.” And that may well be true, given the significant new features to our elections such as a “pre-writ period” before the official campaign, expanded access to voting and strict new limits on third-party spending, potential foreign interference and a 50-day cap on the total length of campaigns. (“Phew,” many of us may be saying in recollection of the epic, three-month-long campaign of 2015.)

Big changes need big agreement, though — do Trudeau’s Liberals have the time or goodwill with other parties to pull that off in time for 2019? That’s far from clear right now.

Back when they were in opposition, Liberals were arguing that when you’re fiddling with something as important as the way we elect governments, all parties need to agree to the changes.

That’s how mature democracies work, Anita Vandenbeld wrote in a 2014 article for iPolitics. Vandenbeld was writing then as an expert in international democratic development. Today, she is the Liberal member of Parliament for Ottawa-West Nepean.

“The Elections Act is no ordinary piece of legislation,” Vandenbeld wrote in the piece, headlined: “The Fair Elections Act is a global disgrace.”

“Changes to this law must be taken very seriously and be based on the widest possible public and expert consultation,” she wrote.

It’s not clear that a political climate exists in Canada at the moment to obtain all-party agreement on anything … and maybe especially not voting reform, given Trudeau’s broken promise on changing the system and all the (ultimately) wasted committee work from 2016 to early 2017.

And that’s too bad, because there’s a lot that’s good about this legislation.

For instance, I really like the 50-day limit on election campaigns, and the ways in which this legislation would remove any financial incentive for stretching out the campaign. (Spending limits would not be similarly stretched — parties have to make the same budget work, whether it’s 36 days or 50 days of campaigning.)

I also like the idea of a “pre-writ” period, in which the parties would be on a level playing field from June 30 onward to whatever date in October when the election is held. I’ve liked this idea since Sen. Dennis Dawson proposed it back in 2014, in the form of a bill that would have subjected all parties to spending limits in the three months before a campaign too.

Canada’s former elections chief, Jean-Pierre Kingsley has been arguing for this idea too ever since the country went to fixed election dates.

“We know when they (the writs) are going to be dropped now – the political parties should not be entitled to put out ads 30 days before the drop of the writs,” Kingsley used to argue.

This bill, laudably, goes farther than merely 30 days.

We might also learn to like the new “register of future electors,” for Canadians aged 14 to 17. When Scotland lowered its voting age for the 2014 referendum on independence from Britain, many people got to see the benefits of injecting youth into the democratic conversation. Could this register be the prelude to a lower voting age in Canada? I don’t think that would be the worst thing in the world.

For all that’s crammed into this bill, though, it’s interesting to see what’s not in it. Forget about electronic voting as part of “modernization” in our democracy — Canada is just not into that, and probably doubly as averse since the recent revelations about Facebook data abuse and Russian election meddling in the U.S.

The future may be digital in many other areas of government, but the Election Modernization Act clings to the idea of democracy settled still with pencils and paper ballots.

There’s not a whole lot in here, though, as far as I can see, to assuage worries about the collection of data by political parties — a now-crucial part of campaigning. The package of reforms introduced on Monday seems to suggest that political parties will now be required to give citizens some kind of notice of privacy policy. But as it was outlined in the background briefing papers, it seemed to me that this notice would look something like those small-print “terms of service” contracts that no one ever reads when signing up for iTunes or online apps.

If the government does have bigger plans about political parties and data collection, those intentions are not immediately apparent in this bill.

In the more immediate term, Trudeau’s government needs to act quickly to get this bill passed in time for 2019, but not so quickly as to run roughshod over its political rivals.

This is a bill that should be passed, but also in the manner that Liberals once embraced — with lots of public consultation and political consent. As Anita Vandenbeld wrote: “The Elections Act is no ordinary piece of legislation.”

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