Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Nov. 28th, 2006

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

But—

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Keep it very short, please.

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

You say that all the changes, or at least 95% of them, would be made by mid-September?

[Marcel Blanchet]

I'd say late September is probably a better bet, but by mid-September, we have in fact already received a great many of those address changes. Under the legislation, within 30 days of moving, people are required to advise various organizations of their change of address, and especially so that the new address can be reflected on their driver's licence.

[Pauline Picard, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Yes, but mid-September is only one month away from the election date. In the weeks that follow, there will be more changes. Would you say you have received 75% of the changes by mid-September?

[Marcel Blanchet]

Yes, between 75% and 80%. Now I'm saying that without having the actual figures in front of me, but I believe, based on information that I request regularly on this, that is about the proportion. So, there would still be quite a few changes to make during the revision period if the election were to be held too early in September.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Madam Picard.

Monsieur Godin, you can have one final question.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Is it possible that you said earlier that homeless people who don't have ID don't even go because they know they won't be able to vote? Do you have those numbers? Have you studied this?

[Marcel Blanchet]

Unfortunately, we don't have any figures on that. Of course, there are homeless people in Montreal, but probably far fewer than out West, probably because of the weather.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Well, today they may be wondering whether they made the right choice.

My other question has to do with the bingo cards. Supposing Yvon Godin is number 24 at one polling station and that Mr. Guimond is also number 24 at the polling station next door, and even though he has moved, the changes were never made. Where would they put him on the bingo card? Would they both yell “Bingo” at the same time?

[Marcel Blanchet]

Well, as I said earlier, people are not allowed to vote anywhere but the place where they're on the list. Every polling station identifies the electors that are on its list and an elector cannot be registered at the next polling station.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

In federal elections, however, it is possible to register on voting day. So, there could be a problem with the bingo cards.

[Marcel Blanchet]

In that case, you would have to set strict rules to ensure that electors cannot register at two different tables.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Monsieur Godin, have you finished?

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you very much.

I'm sorry, we've completed the round.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

I have a point of order.

I can't ask the witness any more questions, as has been signalled by the chair, but I intended to ask the witness what kind of advertising he engages in, for people in disadvantaged positions in the community, to make sure they are aware of how to access their voting rights. Perhaps we could ask our clerk to get any material from our witness on that for distribution to the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Okay. If there are no objections, we will do that.

Monsieur Blanchet, we appreciate your coming out this morning on such short notice to spend time with us, and we appreciate the information you've given the committee. On behalf of the committee, I want to thank you very much for being here.

You are certainly welcome to stay. It's a public meeting, but at this time the committee is pleased with your report and you don't actually have to stay.

Colleagues, we're going to suspend for a few minutes so we can get our conference set up for Vancouver.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

We will resume the meeting. Thank you very much.

This morning we have three witnesses by videoconference from Vancouver. I would like to welcome them. We certainly appreciate the ability for you all to get together in the same place. Hopefully the weather is not as bad out there as we're hearing. Obviously you were successful in getting in this morning.

We have Mr. Murray Mollard from the B.C. Civil Liberties Association. I believe Murray is sitting in the middle. Is that correct?

[Murray Mollard, Executive Director, British Columbia Civil Liberties Association]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

Thank you.

Mr. Jim Quail, British Columbia Public Interest Advocacy Centre, and Ms. Tina Marie Bradford. Thank you very much as well. Tina, we can recognize you here, since you were the last one to shake your head.

Witnesses, I want to let you know you're being fed our voices in English only, but members, you can ask questions in either of the official languages, as you prefer. I would also ask the witnesses, when you are not speaking, to please turn off your microphones, if you're allowed to do that. I'm not seeing that you have individual microphones, but if there is any opportunity for you to turn the mikes off out there, that would help us here.

As well, our experience with video conferencing is that it's most beneficial for us at this end if you speak slowly, as obviously our translators do not have copies of your message.

Witnesses, I know you were instructed that you have five minutes. Certainly I'll respect that instruction, but if you don't need the full five minutes, don't feel obligated to take it. That's all I need to say.

We can start with opening statements and we can start with Tina Marie. We'll have you go first, and then we'll move straight across to our right. Introduce yourself, and then give your opening statement. Thank you.

[Tina Marie Bradford, Lawyer, As an Individual]

Mr. Chair and committee members, my name is Tina Marie Bradford and I am a labour lawyer practising in British Columbia.

Until last year, I was a resident of the riding of Vancouver East. The problems of poverty and various types of substance addictions and mental illness are particularly prevalent in one area of the Vancouver East riding and this area is commonly known as the downtown eastside.

I'm going to speak briefly about my experiences as an organizer of a group of volunteer lawyers who assist marginalized citizens in the downtown eastside during elections--municipal, provincial, and specifically federal--in helping them obtain sufficient identification to allow them to vote in elections.

I have fulfilled this role as an organizer and a volunteer in the last two federal elections and the last provincial and municipal elections.

To give you a bit of background on the downtown eastside, this fairly small area--a few square blocks--is a hub of poverty for Vancouver. Many of the downtown eastside residents are often homeless or transient, and many live in rooming houses or hotels or shelters where crime is prevalent. Due to their circumstances, most of them have quite a bit of difficulty obtaining government identification, and if by chance they do obtain this type of identification, their belongings are regularly stolen, so they don't have them for long.

If anyone here were to pull out their wallet, they would be able to produce a number of pieces of identification quite easily. For people in the downtown eastside, this is quite difficult. They generally don't own a car, they don't have a driver's licence, and because they don't own a car, they don't have access to insurance papers. They don't own property, so they don't have property tax notices or anything to do with owning property. They don't qualify for credit, so they don't have credit cards or debit cards, and they certainly couldn't negotiate the process to obtain a Canadian passport because they don't even have the most basic identification. And even if they did have some of these things at some point, they're quite often lost.

In the past few elections, it became apparent to a number of concerned citizens that people were being turned away regularly at the polls in the downtown eastside. In 2002, a group of lawyers came together in a desire to help these disenfranchised individuals.

A process was developed whereby we would go into the downtown eastside for the advance polls and on election day and we would set up tables on the street in high pedestrian areas. We would swear what's called a statutory declaration for these people, which they could then take to the polling station and it would be accepted as sufficient identification for them to vote.

Just what is this statutory declaration? I don't know if the committee has the statutory declaration in front of them that I forwarded.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

We do have that. In fact, Ms. Bradford, it's being distributed right now. Thank you.

You have not quite two minutes left.

[Tina Marie Bradford]

I had better speed up then.

The statutory declaration is a form prescribed by the Canada Evidence Act. It is similar in nature to what people know as an affidavit, something that you would submit to court, but because it is not going to court, it is called a statutory declaration.

The statutory declaration contains the person's name, their residence, their signature, the three requirements that are set out by the current act, and then the person swears the statutory declaration in front of the lawyer, because in B.C. lawyers are able to act as commissioners for taking oaths.

In the last two federal elections we have sworn approximately 350 to 400 statutory declarations for each election. So we've allowed approximately 350 to 400 people to vote who might otherwise be turned away from the polls.

Bill C-31 removes the ability to rely on only one piece of identification, such as the statutory declaration, and now creates a requirement that you have two forms of identification. So the work we've been doing helping these people would no longer work. They would be turned away if they showed up to the polling station with only the statutory declaration.

The effect of this is that, of course, a large number of these people would be turned away. When we swear the statutory declarations, we do a precursory investigation to confirm that they are who they say they are. We'll ask them to go through their pockets to see what kind of identification they have, such as a rent receipt, a court document, a promise to appear if they have been released on bail, or a prescription in their pocket with their name on it. So we would confirm their eligibility before we took their oath and swear the statutory declaration for them.

Now, if these people have anything at all, they would take that to the polling station, and it is not likely that this form of identification would be accepted.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Goodyear]

I'm terribly sorry, Ms. Bradford, but you are over your five minutes. Perhaps we can use some of the questioning rounds to get more of the information that you brought for us this morning. But I'm going to have to move on now.

Please take a moment to introduce yourself to the committee and then begin with your statement.