Privilege  On February 6, during debate on Bill C-23, the fair elections act, the member for Mississauga—Streetsville made a statement in the House about voter identification cards. He rose in the House on February 24 and corrected the record. The next day he added, “...I recognized that this was an error on my part”. He then sincerely apologized to all Canadians and all members of the House for the statement he made.

Privilege  My colleague cited a statistic that is part of the tapestry of the lack of evidence. The idea is that one-sixth of voter identification cards are in error. It took us ages to figure out exactly what the minister had been referring to when he used that figure. Apparently, 84%, according to Elections Canada reports, are up to date and accurate in the sense that when those cards are sent out, they reach 84% of the people they are intended to reach.

Democratic Reform  Yesterday, he made inaccurate statements about trying to claim 73% of senators use voter identification cards, and that is not the case. He made the allegation there are no problems with those cards, when in fact problems are identified in one of six cards. The government has presented before the House of Commons a comprehensive reform of the Elections Act.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Are you aware, Minister, that the Neufeld report recommended the expanding of the use of voter identification cards?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Those are very serious words from our Supreme Court directed at the CEO of Elections Canada in the aftermath of mass irregularities. We are going to end these irregularities by ending the use of vouching and voter identification cards to ID voters.

Fair Elections Act  It is good to have an extra day of voting, but if voters cannot identify themselves because vouching can no longer be used and the voter identification card has been eliminated, then that extra day does not do us much good. The act of voting in person is being made more difficult. This make no sense. As parliamentarians, we have a duty to draft bills that make sense.

Fair Elections Act  People move with high frequency in the GTA, and in some areas we have 30% turnover in our communities from one election to the next. People will receive a voter identification card in the mail. Of course, that individual has now moved, so this mail is just dropped in at a high-rise, out on the counter or into the recycling bin, and piles of it accumulate.

Fair Elections Act  Fourth, the bill before us would crack down on voter fraud. It would prohibit the use of vouching and voter identification cards as replacements for acceptable identification papers. Elections Canada has found irregularities in the use of vouching and a high rate of inaccuracy in the National Register of Electors, which is used to create the voter information cards.

Fair Elections Act  Bill C-23 attempts to provide some of those rules. One of the things that the bill would do is to specify that the voter identification card sent to a voter by the Chief Electoral Officer may not be used as a piece of identification for the purpose of voting. That is stated in proposed subsection 143(2.1): The Chief Electoral Officer may authorize types of identification for the purposes of [voting].

Fair Elections Act  Speaker, during the last election, people were thrilled to be able to vote with their voter identification cards. It really simplified things. I am a nurse and I sometimes work with seniors. It is surprising, but some of them have no identification whatsoever. They expire over time, and some people never bother replacing them.

Fair Elections Act  The fair elections act would put an end to the use of vouching on election day. Similarly, Elections Canada recently experimented with the use of the voter identification cards as a form of ID. Before these pilot projects, Canadians voted for years without using cards to identify themselves, and for good reason. A report by Elections Canada recently showed that roughly one in six eligible voters does not have a correct address on the national registrar of electors, which is used to produce the voter information card.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  One solution to alleviate their challenges in proving their address--again, I'm referring to the voter information card--is those students can be registered on campus. If they live in residence, they will receive a voter identification card at their residence. That could help establish their residence on campus, even though their driver's licence shows that they come from Halifax but they're studying in Ottawa.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  My suggestion to the committee is that we look at the VIC as being an acceptable piece of ID to establish name and address, the VIC in combination with another document. That's the voter identification card.

Canada Elections Act  These jurisdictions take a variety of approaches, including the development of a unique voter identification card or exclusive photo ID requirements. The voter ID process in our bill was carefully crafted by the standing committee to provide a balance appropriate to our Canadian system and consistent with our values.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, may I add something about the voter identification card, because I would not want to leave the wrong impression. I know that the accuracy of the list is of concern to a number of people. I would just like to make two points. First, the list covers 93% of voters.