Procedure and House Affairs committee  It becomes extremely complicated, and at times it becomes so complicated that students will just give up. That's why the voter identification card was a useful means for students to access their vote, essentially.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think I showed a bit of my bias there, because I did refer to it as the “voter identification card” at one point in my remarks.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Furlong, I've long been a fan of the voter information card, as it's technically called. I like to call it voter identification card—I'm putting my bias on the table—because I think it should be used as ID. Quite frankly, as you and others point out, this is really and truly the only national type of ID available.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  This also eliminates the discretion of the Chief Electoral Officer to allow any use of the voter identification card as a legitimate form of address identification. Elections Canada has described the problem in this way: With regard to accessibility, a continued challenge in the identification regime is the difficulty some electors face in providing documentary proof of their residence.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The most egregious example to me was the voter information card, which we commonly call in rural Canada and the rest of Canada the voter identification card. Even though it doesn't carry that title, that is what it really is to these people. I used to see so many people, especially seniors, who would put a magnet on this card, and put it on their refrigerator to make sure that they went to vote.

Democratic Reform  However, it is also this government that indeed believes in giving Canadians the right to vote and a voice in their vote during elections, something the previous government decided to take away when it got rid of vouching, something the previous government decided to take away when it got rid of the voter identification card. This government believes in Canadians voting, and guess what? We are not afraid of their voting either.

Finance  Speaker, the Minister of Democratic Institutions should know that there is no such thing as a voter identification card. It is called a voter information card. There is a difference, and the minister should know that. However, there is also great suspense. We just learned that the deficit last year was twice what the government promised in the last election.

Democratic Reform  I am looking forward to members opposite asking questions of witnesses to ensure that we encourage Canadians to participate in our democracy, to encourage young Canadians to be registered for elections, to ensure that Canadians without identification can have vouching and can use their voter identification card, and to ensure that Canadians living abroad and every single Canadian have the right to vote.

Elections Modernization Act  Madam Speaker, I think it is incredibly important, when we are looking at this legislation, to look at the importance of the return of vouching and the return of the voter identification card. In fact, yesterday the acting Chief Electoral Officer, Stéphane Perrault, said at committee that one of the important things is that sometimes individuals living in households as couples do not have any identification that establishes their residency and that they can use a voter information card to establish residency along with their identification.

Elections Modernization Act  Among other things, the so-called Fair Elections Act eliminated the use of vouching and the use of voter identification cards as a form of ID. This was a form of voter suppression. It was the gerrymandering of not a polling district's boundaries but rather the gerrymandering of the very act of voting itself.

Elections Modernization Act  This means that people under the age of 18 and those who are not even citizens might vote. An individual who receives a voter identification card in the mail with Susy Smith's name on it when she is Samantha Simons can just take the card and go to the polls and vote under a false identity. It is not difficult to see the problems within this.

Elections Modernization Act  Nonetheless, the Liberals are pushing forward with this bill, Bill C-76, and in the process of doing so are threatening the integrity, transparency, and fairness of our electoral system, which would hurt all Canadians. Under this bill, people would be able to use their voter identification cards as valid pieces of identification when they went to vote. This change would be implemented despite the fact that the government admits that 986,613 voter information cards were issued with incorrect information and had to be revised during the last election, in 2015.

Elections Modernization Act  Despite the fearmongering from members opposite, the simple fact is that record numbers of Canadians voted in the last election, under the current system with voter information cards, not voter identification cards. Beyond the changes the bill would make to voter identification, it also targets campaign financing. Interesting timing on that one. The Liberals failed in their plan to change our electoral system to their preferred option without a referendum.

Elections Modernization Act  It is for this reason that I move: That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following: the House decline to give second reading to Bill C-76, An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and other Acts and to make certain consequential amendments, since the Bill fails to address the high error rate in the National Register of Electors, and the high rate of erroneous Voter Identification Cards, reported at 986,613 instances in the 2015 election, and does nothing to deal with foreign interference in Canadian elections because the Bill proposes to double the total maximum third party spending amount allowed during the writ period and to continue to allow unlimited contributions in the period prior to the pre-writ period.

Democratic Reform  It only takes away the ability of many qualified voters to vote. In Bill C-76, we are not only restoring the use of voter identification cards and vouching, but we are also giving back the mandate for Elections Canada to promote participation. The Conservative Party's so-called Fair Elections Act was simply cover for a government determined to wring political gain from every measure.