Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't have any specific statistics on what percentage of people with vision loss in Canada do or do not have identification. We are very pleased that the CNIB card can be used as identification. I can tell you that quite regularly I get calls from folks saying that they don't u

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Do you remember?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No, there is no Braille version that comes out. In fact, the voter card feels very much like a coupon that you get for pizza, so it often gets missed by people who are blind or partially sighted, because it feels the same as every other piece of mail that comes through. It's no d

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Again, not everybody who is blind or partially sighted is registered with CNIB, so our database wouldn't necessarily help you reach everybody in Canada who is blind or partially sighted. As for putting out Braille, many people who are blind or partially sighted don't read Braille

Procedure and House Affairs committee  In the last stats I remember, it's something very low. For someone who's proficient at Braille, it's about 3%.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  In saying that, there are a lot of people I know who read what I call “elevator Braille”. They learn the basic numbers and so on, so that they can tell what the elevator floors are, or they learn just the basics for phone numbers and so on, or the uncontracted Braille. But the pe

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I have voted completely independently and in secret in municipal elections.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I personally have only started with the process of the advisory committee and we've only had one meeting last month. So that process has just started. But in the past CNIB has been in contact with Elections Canada but I wasn't a part of those processes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't necessarily think that this bill would tie their hands. It's not my viewpoint that it would tie them and hamper them from doing it but I think it would make that process more onerous, which means it would be less likely that Elections Canada would want to go through a mor

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. We have opportunities to meet with Elections Canada. I also sit on the Elections Canada advisory committee, as does Kory. So we are in discussions with Elections Canada at this point.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think the process that is in place becomes more onerous for getting permission to do that. If it was amended to make the process more directive the Chief Electoral Officer would have to go through that process. If the amendments aren't made and it stays more permissive, then I

Procedure and House Affairs committee  My key comment would be that the people with disabilities out there are so numerous that the groups of people with disabilities don't know them all. When it comes to people who are blind or partially sighted, CNIB is a service organization that provides assistance to people with

Procedure and House Affairs committee  From the perspective of CNIB, the amendments that we would like to see are specifically around strengthening and being more directive with the Chief Electoral Officer to do the testing and to create a more accessible voting process. That's our key issue that we would like to put

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think it will impede some of the people who are blind or partially sighted in Canada to not have a vouching system. We have had some discussions with the minister, and for those individuals who do have a CNIB card, you can put your address on the card. There are some discussion

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. Sorry.