Procedure and House Affairs committee  A technical amendment will be proposed to ensure that the auditor has access to all documents necessary to perform the audit for voting at the polls as well. Sixth, an amendment will be tabled to mitigate the risk of a voter identification card being sent to Canadians at an address at which they no longer live, which would increase the risk of such cards falling into the hands of people who are not eligible to vote in our elections.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We're going to end there, but please allow me one question from the previous hour that I forgot to ask because the chair doesn't ask very many questions. You mentioned that you're well ahead even on preparing voter identification cards.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The Chief Electoral Officer is allowed to designate whatever ID, except the law is now going to prohibit the voter identification card from being used as a piece of ID. How is that going to impact the people you're trying to help on election day? The fact that those voter identification cards, if they've gone through all the hoops of getting them and they're lucky enough to have them, aren't even going to be ID at the polling station?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  A full 75% disapprove of raising the campaign contribution limits. On the specific issue of voter identification cards and vouching, one-tenth of all members actually themselves either had to have somebody vouch for them or knew of somebody who had to be vouched for. One-third of them used the voter identification cards.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That's why this is here, notwithstanding every expert saying that the best thing to do to improve our election system, and to increase the opportunity and the likelihood that people will vote is to turn the voter information card into a voter identification card and let people vote with that.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Having said all of that, I want to focus a bit on the voter information card, because more and more, we're getting people coming in and saying that it either should be a voter identification card, or we should actually be providing a voter identification card free of charge by the government to the people to help them to vote. Here's my point about the voter information card.

Privilege  Other than as a pilot project in recent elections, Canadians have always voted without using a voter identification card as proof of identification and residency. The argument that we have heard that not using the voter identification card to allow someone to vote at the polls would somehow destabilize the democratic system is false.

Fair Elections Act  The method that is now being abolished, the voter identification cards along with another piece of ID, was used successfully in this experiment with an extraordinary amount of positive feedback. I will move on to the vouching issue. I think that the minister wants to tap into some intuitive problem Canadians might have with one person vouching for another.

Fair Elections Act  Mayrand, the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, had to say last March about the accuracy of the information on the voter identification card: It is worth noting that the VIC is the only document issued by the federal government that includes address information. The Canadian passport, for example, does not include an address.

Democratic Reform  Mr. Speaker, according to Canada's director general of elections, the voter identification card is actually more reliable than a driver's licence for the information it contains. The voter identification card is the only piece of identification issued by the Government of Canada that contains an address.

Democratic Reform  Since the Prime Minister claims to want to stop fraud, I have just one question for him. The Chief Electoral Officer says that the voter identification card is even more reliable than a driver's licence. Why does the Prime Minister want to prohibit the use of the voter identification card?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I would address the honourable member with the comment that I appreciate that in the 2011 election the voter identification cards had limited usefulness compared with the previous one. Nevertheless, many seniors like me have short memories and still rely on them. It assists the efficiency at the polling station to identify on the poll list who the voter is.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  You also talked about all the people in homes or other facilities who will have a great deal of difficulty in proving their address. In your view, voter identification cards could help those people identify themselves at polling stations.

Business of Supply  I would ask if the member would perhaps comment on that one in six issue, as far as those voter identification cards are concerned.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  In particular, the minister likes to talk about a one-sixth error rate with his voter identification cards. He does not like to mention that you need a second piece of ID. He does not like to mention that names and addresses are on these cards. Is there anything you would like to say about the likelihood that errors on voter identification cards are leading to citizen fraud?